Scotland, Speyside. Distillery operational. Owner: Inver House Distillers Ltd

Knockdhu can lay claim to being one of very few Scottish distilleries built at the initiative of a group (1898 by John Haig & Co, Distillers Company Ltd) and to have been bought only once in its lifetime (Inver House Distillers in 1988). 90 years of stability and production in the shadow of internationally renowned blends such as Haig. Nonetheless, only a handful of own-name Knockdhu bottlings exist, with the majority released by independent bottlers.In fact, it was only under its assumed name, An Cnoc, and at the initiative of its new owners, that the distillery became known in 1993. One name, one brand, jealously guarded, as no independent bottlings exist, save for those granted to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society.

A Knockdhu (AnCnoc) single cask (#1888) distilled in 1978, matured in an Amontillado sherry cask and bottled by Adelphi in 1996. Adelphi was originally a distillery built in 1925 in the Gorbals district of Glasgow that was taken over by Archibald Walker in 1880. Four years after it was bought by the Distillers Company Limited in 1903, it stopped producing malt whisky but continued to produce grain whisky until 1932. The name was revived in 1993 by Archibald’’s great-grandson Jamie Walker when he created his independent bottling business in Fife, later bought in 2004 by Keith Falconer and Donald Houston, the Laird of Ardnamurchan. It was on the latter’’s land, in Glenbeg, that Adelphi built the Ardnamurchan distillery, which opened in 2014. A limited edition of 638 bottles.