Cragganmore 12 Year Old D&J McCallum 1980s

Cragganmore distillery was built by John Smith at the end of the 19th century. An astute businessman, he selected the location of his distillery to facilitate easy trade with his customers, and produced spirit geared fully towards the needs of the blending companies. It was not long before it was considered one of the finest for such a purpose, and the distillery was eventually acquired by White Horse Distillers. When White Horse were bought by DCL, its subsequent iteration, United Distillers, selected it as part of their Classic Malts series in 1988, officially launching its single malt brand. Despite this, its continued importance to Diageo blends means that distillery bottlings like this are scarce, with only the 12 year old and Distillers Edition making up a permanent range.

This is a 1980s bottling produced for D&J McCallum, one of the blending operations that was part of the DCL portfolio. In the time before distilleries marketing their own single malt brands, it was not uncommon for the blending companies that they supplied to be granted the licenses to bottle their single malt, particularly those within the DCL empire.