White Horse 1l Blended Whisky

Product Information

White Horse is featured in Mieko Kawakami's Breast and Eggs: A Novel (2020) as the main feature of the "all you can drink special" at the Chanel Bar in Tokyo. A particularly good example of White Horse creativity in their advertising is a hilarious 1961 video of the brand’s global positioning, although some of the ethnic characterization might not pass muster today! Noteworthy is the role that Hazelburn distillery played in the development of the Japanese whisky industry inasmuch as the “father” of Japanese whisky, Masataka Taketsuru, in effect had his apprenticeship at the distillery when he worked there for about four months in the winter of 1920 under the stewardship of Peter Margach Innes. Taketsuru produced a report based on his experience there entitled “On the Production Methods of Pot Still Whisky”. This has now been translated into English and was published in 2021 and is an important contribution to the annals of whisky history – in both Scotland and Japan.

Whiskybase B.V. is the Dutch private limited liability company, having its statutory seat in Rotterdam, The Netherlands and its office at Zwaanshals 530, 3035 KS Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Whiskybase B.V. is registered with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce under no. 52072819. The pair combined their passion – and some carefully chosen examples from their respective collections – in a tasting of six White Horse bottlings, spanning four decades. In a supremely generous act, they invited 11 friends and whisky acquaintances along to share the results. This spirit was used 'for medicinal purposes' for some time, but started to become widely adopted as a beverage of choice and a good way to use up excess grains, keeping them safe from the rats' clutches. Once the spirit started to be stored in oak barrels, it was noticed that this had the delightful consequence of providing flavour and colour, giving it a deeper and more mellow taste than the raw spirit. Today, whisky must be aged for at least 3 years in an oak Barrel before it can legally be called "whisky". The Service has been prepared by us solely for information purposes to Members and the Service is based on information we consider reliable and we obtain the contents of the Service from a number of different third party sources (including Contributions), but we do not endorse, support, represent, warrant or guarantee the completeness, truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of the Services and any information therein.If any provision of these Terms is held invalid, the remainder of the Terms shall continue in full force and effect. Lagavulin dates from 1816 and celebrated 200 years of unbroken production in 2016 with the appearance of an 8 years old, a 12 years old and a 25 years old, the latter having already gained scarcity status and now selling at up to three times its price at the time of release. However, there is also an even scarcer option in the form of the 1991 single cask (522 bottles) at 52.5% ABV. This was available only through ballot with the proceeds going entirely to Islay-based charities. The company produced a booklet in 1935 entitled “Scotch: from Birth to Glorious Maturity”, which is now very hard to find.

The distillation process spread to Scotland and Ireland by the 15th century via Alexandrian Greeks, Medieval Arabs and Latin Europeans. The Scots and the Irish, who already had a well-developed tradition of farming cereal crops, used the technique to distil from a variety of fermented grain mashes to produce a spirit, most closely resembling today's new make spirits. White Horse 8 Years Old appears and Glen Elgin Distillery is acquired by DCL and licensed to White Horse. In Richard Yates's 1961 novel Revolutionary Road, a small model horse taken from around a White Horse whisky bottle and gifted to her by her father serves as an important symbol of nostalgia, love, and hope for April Wheeler. The Scotch whisky sector had a torrid year as the pandemic and punitive tariffs saw its sales come under pressure. But one brand managed to record modest growth among its million‐case competitors.

There is an excellent coverage of Sir Peter in Allen Andrews’ book “ The Whisky Barons” (1977, 2 nd edition 2003) - again, see Whisky Biblioteca. Ownership soon passed to the Glen Elgin-Glenlivet Distillery Co. Ltd and, in 1907, to J.J. Blanche of Glasgow. DCL later acquired it through Scottish Malt Distillers Ltd and responsibility for it was subsequently passed to White Horse Distillers Ltd. Glen Elgin, like Lagavulin, is bottled at 12 years old, but is, of course, a totally different sort of dram. It is slightly sweet on the palate, which is not unusual for a Speyside. The White Horse blending and bottling facility is located alongside Port Dundas Grain Distillery in Glasgow which is owned and operated by another DCL subsidiary, Scottish Grain Distillers Ltd.” The brand’s horse icon was “evolved” in 2021 to become more “distinctive within the category”, adds Magana. Two of the distilleries, Lagavulin and Glen Elgin, which were once licensed to, or associated with White Horse Distillers Ltd. are still around and still owned by Diageo. And Lagavulin is rightly famous and much appreciated by the “Islayphiles”, as I call them, being one myself! It is part of Diageo’s Classic Malts selection and comes at various ages and expressions. When White Horse Distillers became part of DCL in 1927, Lagavulin was transferred within the group to its subsidiary, Scottish Malt Distillers (SMD). However, Lagavulin was subsequently licensed to White Horse Distillers Limited, thus re-establishing the old link. And so it remained for many years but, for reasons which remain unclear, that association has become somewhat fudged. We have some earlier Lagavulin expressions that were bottled at 16 years old by White Horse. The new campaign from Sir Edward’s, which is owned by French drinks group La Martiniquaise‐Bardinet, aims to celebrate the Scottish roots of the brand, while highlighting the whisky’s strengths as an authentic, easy‐to-drink and accessible Scotch.

The aluminium capsule of pre-1955 bottle number two’s patented KNS (Kork-N-Seal) closure had been breached – providing the most plausible explanation for its seriously funky, cabbage-water character. Only on the palate did White Horse’s characteristic smoke and buttery flavour come through. A bit. According to global brand director, Carlos Magana, White Horse’s growth was due to its “strong reputation” in Brazil, Japan and Russia, which represent 94% of business. Looking ahead, Magana says: “The focus will remain on our core markets, and we’ll be working to bring the refreshed brand to life for consumers and innovating with new products and formats.” What do we demand from blended Scotch whiskies? Beyond the simple pleasure of drinking them, and putting aside the wrong-headed ‘inferior to malts’ prejudice, probably a defined style, balance and consistency.

To maintain the Scotch whisky brand’s success, White Horse will invest in the on‐ and off‐trades, and look to raise consumer awareness in Brazil and Japan. Six whiskies with the same name: all different, all sharing a common character, all reinforcing the ideal of blended Scotch. So: was there quality, balance and consistency? Yes, there was, but it was also shaped by the practices and pressures of the conditions under which these whiskies were bottled, the efficiency of the closures used and the storage conditions in the years that followed. In 1927 White Horse Distillers Ltd. was taken over by the Distillers Company Ltd (DCL) which, for a number of years, used it as a holding company and granted it the licence to a number of distilleries including Lagavulin and Glen Elgin. Last year’s Scotch Whisky Brand Champion, Dewar’s, reported a 12.4% decline. Meanwhile, the world’s biggest‐selling Scotch, Diageo’s Johnnie Walker blended whisky, plunged by 23.3% to 14.1m cases. Diageo’s J&B and Vat 69 brand also recorded double‐digit drops, while Bell’s returned to growth in 2020 (up by 10.8%). We give some examples in Whisky Memorabilia of White Horse advertising over the decades, both in print form and promotional merchandise.