Cadenhead’s is known as Scotland’s oldest independent bottler dating back to 1842. William Cadenhead was a renowned poet and proper citizen of his era. Upon his death, the company was managed by Robert Duthie who started as the superintendent of the Scottish Orphanage in Bombay. Duthie’s tenure at Cadenhead’s was successful until the Great Depression. Robert Duthie was killed by a tram car while on his way to a meeting with his bankers.
Miss Ann Oliver took the helm for many years and eventually liquidated all the Cadenhead’s spirit stocks at auction. The action book was 167 pages and the 2-day event became the largest wine and spirits auction in Britain’s history. All of this history is to lay the foundation for J&A Mitchell & Co., owners of Springbank and Glengyle Distillers. J&A Mitchell purchased the Cadenhead’s name in 1972. Now spanning most of Europe with retail stores, Cadenhead’s headquarters and warehouse is in Campbeltown walking distance to the Springbank and Glengyle Distilleries.
Cadenhead’s Warehouse Tour
We were lucky enough to have a private warehouse tour with Cameron. Similar to a distillery warehouse tour, we sampled straight from casks in the warehouse.
Pro Tip: get a bottling from the cask at this point in the tour.
Pro tip 2: sign up for the tour and lunch. The store dining room is pretty special.
The normally scheduled tour was finishing up as we walked into the warehouse. Another Cadenhead’s guide was hand filling bottles from his tour and I got to try the bottle capping machine. It’s the closest I’ll get to working the “Laverne and Shirley” production line.
Cadenhead’s Store
After the warehouse, we went to the retail store where we were introduced to ‘the cage bottles.’ Cadenhead’s has a locked cage filled with about 20 special bottles of Springbank scotch from casks in the warehouse. The gimmick is that these bottles have not been publicly tasted, may never show-up again for sale, are not replaced in the cage very often and each bottle has to be personally signed by the buyer. Prices are fixed by age and I have to say the one I purchased is fantastic.
A funny story for us was when we walked to the cage and the door was unlocked, we didn’t really know what was happening. All of a sudden, some guy off the street comes running in and grabs 4 bottles for purchase. For a second I had the feeling of a Black Friday Sale at Walmart. “Who is this guy? Why is he taking those bottles… my bottles? I don’t even know if I want them but I don’t want him to have them.” Typical. Maybe he was a Cadenhead’s employee who’s job is to create a buying frenzy. We don’t know. I got the bottle I wanted. Mark got the bottles he wanted and this unknown person said he had been to the store three times in the last week waiting to get his 4 bottles. So I guess everyone won.
The rest of our time in the store was very hospitable, on both days. Yes, we returned the next day. Pro Tip; Cadenhead’s store has store special casks that allow you to bottle directly from them. I obviously picked up a few 200ml bottles from these casks. Before I knew the story behind the store, I visited the Cadenhead’s shop in Baden Switzerland outside of Zurich and picked up a full bottle from the cask at that store.
