This is a pre arrival offering with a firm cutoff date. Timing is an estimate and can shift due to carrier schedules, port congestion, customs, or warehouse receiving.
Glenlivet 1970, Fifty Years
01A Sherry Cask From a Different Era
Today every drop of sherry must be bottled in Spain. Before the 1970s it was not. Sherry shipped to Scotland in the cask, was bottled there by wine merchants, and the fresh, wine-soaked wood went straight into the whisky warehouses. Those casks are the reason the great sherried Scotch of the twentieth century tastes the way it does, and they have not existed for fifty years.
One of those merchants was Peter Thomson Ltd of Perth, Finn Thomson's great-grandfather's company, which bottled its own sherry brands and used the emptied casks to mature its whisky stocks. This hogshead is exactly that kind of cask. Filled with Glenlivet new make on March 6, 1970, it has held the same spirit ever since. In Finn's words, the outstanding quality of these fresh sherry casks is blatant when tasting this whisky.
02Why This Bottle Exists
The family
Finn Thomson is the ninth generation of a Perthshire whisky family whose roots run from illicit stills on the banks of the Tay to the Golden Beneagles blend that poured through Gleneagles in the 1920s. His grandfather Michael laid down one of Scotland's largest private family cask collections in the 1980s and 90s and kept it back when the rest was sold.
A 1970 Glenlivet sits older than any of that. It is the kind of cask that only reaches a family with three centuries in the trade.
The distillery
Glenlivet is the distillery that gave Speyside its name and the first in Scotland to take out a licence, in 1824. In 1970 it was still an independent family company, five years from its sale to Seagram, running a spirit lighter and more floral than most of its neighbours.
Fifty years in an active sherry hogshead turned that delicate spirit almost black. The colour, in Finn's description, is deep magenta, like Coca-Cola held up to the light.
03The Alchemy
Nine Rings, Nine Generations
The cylindrical box is handcrafted in pure oak and built to evoke uncasking: the cask turned inside out, with its charred interior facing outwards and the warm raw wood inside. It is made of nine perfect circles, like rings on a tree, one for each generation that has contributed to the family's 300 year whisky lineage.
Inside sits a bespoke nine-sided bottle, one face for each of those generations. Open the box and you are the first to touch this whisky since 1970.
04Why $15,000
Fifty year old Glenlivet from the distillery itself, the Winchester Collection, released in tiny numbers at roughly $25,000 to $35,000 a bottle. That is a vatting. This is one cask, from a sherry hogshead filled before the modern sherry-cask trade existed, bottled at its natural strength by the family that bottled the sherry. There are 127 bottles in the world, and The Whiskey Lab can bring a small number of them to America.
It is the oldest whisky we have ever offered, from the oldest whisky family in Scotland, and it will not be repeated.
This bottle is ordered for you, not pulled from a shelf. Each order is placed with Finn Thomson in Scotland, shipped to our warehouse in Virginia, and delivered to you. Allow several weeks from order to delivery. We will confirm the timeline with you directly once your order is placed.
Pricing is final: discount codes do not apply to this release. Any order placed using a discount code will be cancelled and refunded.
05Specifications
| Specification | Details |
|---|---|
| Brand | Finn Thomson Whisky, Private Cask Collection |
| Whisky style | Single malt Scotch whisky, single cask |
| Region | Speyside |
| Distillery | Glenlivet |
| Date of distillation | March 6, 1970 |
| Age | 50 years |
| Cask | 1st fill sherry hogshead, full term |
| Cask number | 2366 |
| ABV | 49.8%, cask strength |
| Yield | 127 bottles |
| Volume | 700 ml |
| Presentation | Nine-sided bottle in a handcrafted nine-ring oak uncasking box |
| Price | $15,000 |
| Availability | Special order. Delivery is not immediate; timeline confirmed on order |
| Discounts | Discount codes do not apply to this release |
| Non-chill filtered | Yes |
| Natural colour | Yes |
