Whisky Advocate Blog

This time, it has to do with the 1973 Vintage. I am only aware of two distillery bottlings of Ladyburn from this short-lived Lowland distillery (that were sold here in the U.S., anyway): the 12 year old which I wrote about here on Friday, and this one.

First, some background
About a year or so before the 1973 Vintage was put on the market by William Grant & Sons (who also produce and sell Glenfiddich and Balvenie), I was invited by them to go on a cruise on their yacht (a huge wooden sailboat, actually). A member of the family (of William Grant & Sons) was sailing her up the East Coast and she was sitting in Philadelphia for a few days just an hour from where I live.

It was an opportunity for writers and other guests to taste their whiskies and meet some of the William Grant team. My main reason for going was to meet the marketing director at the time, who I had never met before. I figured it was a good opportunity to begin a relationship with him.

The boat never did sail for some reason, but we had a good time drinking their whisky and checking out this beautiful sailboat.

Now the point of this story
I finally got to meet the marketing manager. Somewhere along our conversation, I brought up that I had a bottle of 12 year old Ladyburn. He looked at me like I had two heads. He didn’t believe me. I told him I would send him a picture of it, which I did.

Then, he told me that they were still sitting on stocks of Ladyburn, and that there was always the possibility that they might bottle some of it. I told him I thought that was great, and that was the end of it. Or so I thought.

A few weeks later, I get a package from him in the mail. They were two casks samples of Ladyburn, along with a note from him. He wanted to know my thoughts on them. One was obviously from a bourbon cask, and the other was from a sherry cask (first fill, probably).

I tasted both. The sample from the bourbon casks showed too much wood influence. The whisky from the sherry cask was dominated by sherry.

So, what did I do? The only proper thing. I started blending varying amounts of both samples to find  a ratio where the sweet fruity notes of the sherried whisky married nicely with the dry, wood spice notes from the bourbon cask whisky. I ended up with something like 3/4 bourbon cask whisky and 1/4 sherry cask whisky. It was a very nice whisky. Not great, but quite enjoyable.

I sent him my thoughts, along with my blend of the two whiskies. I never heard from him again.

About six months later, I received a press release and review sample of the new Ladyburn 1973 Vintage single cask whisky. (Emphasis on single cask.) Bottling it one cask at time meant there was no chance to marry the sherry casks with the bourbon casks. Single cask bottlings were all the rage at the time, so I assume that’s why they bottled the whisky as a single cask.

Well, most of you know the rest of the story. The whisky was not well-received. All the ones I saw (and tasted) were from bourbon casks. And all but one was over-oaked. The initial high price at the time came down over the years, as I remember some of the specialty whisky shops here in the U.S. selling them for half the original list price at the time.

So, there you go. A story behind the story. Not the  happiest of endings, though.

I have a bunch of stories like this, which I will attempt to weave in with my other writings and reviews here from time to time. I hope you like them.