Tamdhu 15 Year Old - 1980s

The Tamdhu distillery has been well-stewarded by owners Ian MacLeod Distillers since they acquired it from Edrington Distillers in 2011. As Edrington’s portfolio also included Highland Park and Macallan, Tamdhu had been given little opportunity to shine, and was mothballed in 2009. Under Ian MacLeod, Tamdhu has been revitalised, with a small but popular core range and frequent single cask and limited edition whiskies including a 1963 50-year-old.  

Tamdhu’s great strength is an affinity for sherry casks that, combined with the excellence of the distillery’s spirit, make Tamdhu’s whisky ideal for long maturation.  In recent years the quality and success of official releases have increased Tamdhu’s prestige, although whisky fans of a certain age have long been aware of Tamdhu’s potential thanks to superb indie bottlings of vintages from the 1950s and 1960s from the likes of Cadenhead’s, Kingsbury and Duncan Taylor.

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.