VAT 69 finest scotch whisky, miniature 1970s
Condition: Collector-Please note as this is a vintage/rare/limited edition bottle, conditions of bottle/label and liquid level can vary - Some years can varied and as estimations only (example: estimated 1970s/80s).
Fill level: 60%.
Whisky still produced: Yes.
Category: Blend.
Distillery: Still producing.
Bottler: Wm. Sanderson & Son Ltd.
Bottling serie: miniature.
Bottling Year: 1970s
Stated Age: Not stated.
Casktype: Not stated.
Strength: 40% Gradi.
Size: 40ml.
Colouring: Unknown.
Chill-filtered: Unknown.
Bottle code: Base S416 S 4 X
Country Origin: Scotland.
Market: Italy.
Not the Pope’s phone number or even a vatted malt, Vat 69 was the flagship blend of William Sanderson & Son Ltd. that was absorbed into DCL, now Diageo. Sales are reputedly over a million cases a year with key markets being Venezuela, Australia and Spain, and it is also bottled locally in India. The traditional heart of the blend was what was once a smoky Highland malt – Glen Garioch. The current recipe includes some 40 malts and grains, and the style is light and well-balanced with a vanilla sweetness. The deluxe, limited edition Vat 69 Reserve was launched in 1980.
Tasting notes;
Appearance/colour; Antique Bronze.
Nose; Faint caramel, wet stones and a hint of brine.
Palate; The mouthfeel and it is an icing sugar sweet whisky mixed in with mango and a little lime, balance is good.
Finish: Remaining spicy to the finish, nicely sweet.
Distillery History: Vat 69 was created by the Leith-born blender William Sanderson in 1882. According to legend he vatted 100 casks and invited a panel of friends to taste them blind. The 69th cask was unanimously declared to be the best, and the name stuck. Within five years Sanderson had bought into the Aberdeenshire distillery of Glen Garioch and had helped found Edinburgh’s North British distillery in 1885 to break DCL’s near monopoly on grain whisky. The blend was well established by the time he died in 1908, and as Europe went to war it headed south with Ernest Shackleton on his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition for ‘medicinal and celebratory purposes’ in 1914.
It became one of America’s most popular whiskies after Prohibition ended in 1933 when its owners merged with Booth’s Distillers of London. Within four years both became part of DCL.
Vat 69 has appeared in films like Our Man in Havana and was popular with Bollywood villains from the 1970s, though it’s probably best known in the States as the favourite tipple of Capt. Lewis Nixon in the TV series Band of Brothers.
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