I've written in this space before about the new-old phenomenon about independent Scotch bottlers—now, with these past 10 days, we see it BLOW UP. The Party Source has been a stalwart champion of the indie Scotch scene since the early years of this 21st century. Now, it's bigger than ever, with the two all-time grand champion bottlers landing on our warehouse dock in the last few days.
You may not know, but there exists in Scotland, for the last 175+ years, a tradition of whisky merchants in Scotland, that bottle a wide assortment of single malts from the very many distilleries in that country. They do not distill the whisky, but they do participate in a robust "horizontal" trading of whisky casks, wherein very many of the distilleries sell casks of whisky to one another as well as to merchants who blend them together into the Scotch brands we know and love today, Johnnie Walker, etc. If you go back a few generations, there were no single malts available from the distilleries who made them—that only started with Glenfiddich, bottling their own whisky, in 1963—prior to this, you could only get any single malt bottling from an independent bottler...namely,
“Gordon & MacPhail.”
Two classic Distillery Labels bottlings from a house that helped define what independent Scotch bottling could be.
Gordon & MacPhail. For most of the 20th century, G&M simply WAS the de facto bottler of almost any single malt. Such great, great distilleries as Linkwood and Mortlach and many more, were only available through the indie channel; these were the "distillery labels" of the day in the 1950s and 60s. Gordon & MacPhail is, pretty much without question, not only the largest Scotch independent bottler but also the most important: they put this scene on the map, from the 20th to the 21st century. With G&M, The Party Source has built a rich and enduring relationship, and we are thrilled to carry it into the future.
The oldest independent Scotch bottler, represented here by two very different expressions from its Chairman's Stock and Original Collection.
But the oldest indie Scotch bottler is another subject. That would be the firm of William Cadenhead (you say it, CADD-in-head, not CAID-in-head). Founded in 1842, Cadenhead remained in family hands until the Campbeltown whisky firm J.A. Mitchell—the owners of Springbank Distillery and simply the greatest whisky distillery on the face of the Earth as far as I am concerned—bought Cadenhead in 1969. Since then, the high standards of the Cadenhead firm have been upheld, with innovation and tradition held in equal balance.
Thus, today's email embraces arguably the two greatest names, ever, in the independent Scotch scene. There are more indie bottlers than ever; there's even a brilliant movie (a series really, here's the youtube link) about the impact of independent Scotch bottlers. Their influence has spread through the entire spirits industry, driving trends and quality standards in rum, Tequila, American whiskey and much, much more. But today, let's begin with the C L A S S I C S. Gordon & MacPhail, Cadenhead...Scotch doesn't get more FUN than this!
Single malt and single grain. Regions, peat, independent bottlers, producers worth knowing, and the bottles waiting on our shelves. Scotch HQ is where all of it comes together.
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