Old Pulteney 21 Year Old

One of Scotland’s last remaining urban distilleries, the Pulteney distillery is ensconced, as it has been since its foundation in 1826, at the corner of a street in the fishing town of Wick in the Northern Highlands. Pulteney has remained one of Wick’s greatest assets despite the fact that the distillery was closed between 1930 and 1951 after the pious residents voted to ‘go dry’, enacting a US-style alcohol prohibition.

After an ownership merry-go-round that included spells under DCL, Hiram Walker and Allied Domecq, Pulteney was acquired in 1995 by Inver House who have done an admirable job taking Pulteney distillery from a blending workhorse to an established high quality single malt brand. Stylistically, Pulteney is an old-school Highland malt with a thread of smoke and a distinctive saline edge, so older independent bottlings of Pulteney are well worth seeking out at auction.

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.