Littlemill 1976 Testament To The Past With Matching Mini 5cl

There were nine different owners of Littlemill between 1772 and the arrival of the Hay family in 1857 when some stability ensued. The Hays remained in charge, expanding and improving the distillery before selling to near neighbour, grain producer Yoker Distillery Co. A further period of instability followed, with blenders Charles Mackinlay and J&G Thompson owning it briefly before, in 1931, it became the possession of the first of a succession of American owners. The first of these was Duncan Thomas, one of the forgotten innovators of Scotch whisky. He stopped triple distillation and installed new hybrid stills with pot still bodies and rectifying heads, allowing a number of different characters to be produced. Three different brands, Littlemill, Dunglass, and Dumbuck, were produced.

Littlemill was apparently relegated to the status of Third Class malt by DCL in the 1950s and bottlings, both official and independent, have swung wildly from the immature (sadly, mostly distillery bottlings) to truly excellent (independent bottlings) where the distillery’s soft centred sweetness expresses itself fully. It was triple distilled until 1929.

Located in the village of Bowling, where the Forth & Clyde Canal meets the river Clyde. These good transport links would, you might imagine, have given Littlemill a commercial advantage, but this was not the case.

The distillery ran until 1992. Littlemill was finally bought by Glen Catrine Bonded Warehouse Ltd, but never redistilled. The stills were taken to Loch Lomond. Its new owner contemplated running Littlemill as a museum, but in 1996 it was closed down and soon after it had been sold to a developer in 2004, it caught on fire.

Only 250 bottles of this Testament Release were created. Each one is housed in a hand-blown decanter and accompanied by a dress stopper made from natural sandstone rescued from the remains of the Distillery.

Distilled: 04.10.1976

Bottled: 08.12.2020

Age: 44 Years Old

Cask Type: Bourbon Hogsheads & First-Fill Oloroso Sherry Hogsheads

42.5% ABV / 70cl & 5cl

Bottle Number: 032 / 250

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