List of products by brand Cadenhead's
Cadenhead's is the oldest independent whiskey bottler active today: retracing the steps of its history means closely following that of the entire Scottish whiskey industry.
Closely linked to the Springbank distillery in Campbeltown, it shares ownership.
The company was founded in 1842 by William Cadenhead, thanks to the merger of a company of rum merchants in London and one dedicated to the trade of spirits in Aberdeen: right here, at 47 Netherkirkgate, the headquarters were established and would remain so for 130 years. In a historical moment in which most of the whiskey produced by the various distilleries was sold in barrels to professional blenders, William Cadenhead was the first to choose to expand his offer and bottle and market single malt whiskeys, therefore whiskeys, directly to the public. of malt from a single producer – about a hundred years before this became standard practice in the industry. Upon William's death, his nephew Robert Duthie acquired the company, introducing blends from different distilleries and famous historic blended brands, such as The Heilanman and Putachieside; Duthie was also responsible for a well-known mass advertising campaign in the United Kingdom under the claim “By Test The Best”. When Robert died in 1931, the company passed to the sisters, who entrusted the management to Ann Oliver: thanks to the Second World War and some unsuccessful choices, the company went into crisis and at the beginning of the 1970s was forced to go into liquidation.
In 1972, the entire stock of barrels stored in the cellars, of which the administration did not know the value, was put up for auction: in addition to repaying debts, the Duthie family obtained substantial proceeds and chose to sell the brand to W. & A Mitchell, an independent company that owns one of Scotland's most famous and oldest distilleries, Springbank. The headquarters was therefore moved to Campbeltown, where it is still located, and shares the very rich warehouses with Springbank (both the traditional dunnage and the more modern racked ones). Between 2012 and 2019, Mark Watt was hired as General Manager who, with his work in valorising the impressive warehouse of barrels and commercial repositioning entirely based on quality, established Cadenhead as one of the most popular independent bottlers among whiskey enthusiasts .
Cadenhead's style has always been without frills and without compromises, exclusively oriented towards the quality and transparency of the product offered to the consumer: in a historical moment in which Scotch is experiencing a wave of growth, Cadenhead has decided to remain faithful to its beliefs, without giving in to the lure of unbridled marketing and luxurious packaging or the temptation to chase volumes at all costs. This is part of a long-term sustainability strategy: aware of the changing commercial fate of the Scotch industry, Cadenhead has built up a stable warehouse over the years, such that it can afford to continue purchasing young whiskey and keep it maturing freely - a fact which in boom periods like the current one it guarantees always reasonable spending and proportionate prices. Cadenhead tries to always have the same number of barrels year after year, adjusted to the annual releases; following the motto “cask is king”, the quality control of the woods is considered a crucial phase.
Cadenhead's whiskey offering is currently divided into three distinct series: Authentic Collection, only full-strength single casks dedicated to Cadenhead's shops; Original Collection, in turn divided into gray labels, with blends of different barrels from the same producer, and golden labels, also only single casks; Willam Cadenhead, with blends of different whiskies, from undeclared producers, generally bottled at 46%. One of Cadenhead's commercial objectives is variety: that is to say that the different releases constantly try to vary the offer, showing products from always different distilleries, with the aim of valorising lesser-known producers and showing all the complexity of the world of scotch. Each bottling of Cadenhead is strictly uncolored and not cold filtered, and therefore always bottled at cask strength or, in rarer cases, at 46%: therefore without intermediate dilutions. The Cadenhead warehouses house thousands of barrels from every Scottish whiskey producer, but not only that: alongside the historic Old Raj gin, the company has not abandoned its oldest origins and continues to mature hundreds of barrels of rum. Indeed, in recent years, it is worth mentioning the progressive expansion of the series of single casks of Rum, selected and bottled with the same criteria valid for whisky; alongside this there is also a very small line of very high quality Cognacs.
