Old Fettercairn 10 Year Old - Circa 2000

The Fettercairn distillery has long been in the shadow of its Whyte & Mackay stablemates Dalmore and Jura, and until very recently received little marketing attention. This situation was not helped by a failed revamp in 2009, when a much-trumpeted launch of 24-year-old, 30-year-old and 40-year-old Fettercairns fell a little flat due to a combination of disappointingly low bottling strengths, poor cask selection on the 30-year-old and some laughably over-ambitious pricing.

Happily for Fettercairn, developments since Whyte & Mackay were purchased by Emperador in 2015 have been encouraging, with a smartly-packaged, well-received new range appearing in 2018. Adventurous whisky fans, though, will find the best value for Fettercairn in cask strength, well-aged independent bottlings from Signatory, Cadenhead’s and Douglas Laing.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.