1960 The Last Drop 48 Year Old Finest Aged Blended Scotch Whisky 750ml

1960 The Last Drop 48 Year Old Finest Aged Blended Scotch Whisky is the debut release from The Last Drop Distillers, bottled in 2008 at 104 proof (52% ABV) in an edition of just 1,347 bottles. A blended Scotch whose youngest component dates from 1960, it spent some 48 years in Scottish warehouses before bottling, emerging as one of the rarest blends ever brought to market. The company's strapline, “before there is no more,” could have been written for this whisky.

The Last Drop Distillers was founded in 2007 by three legends of the drinks trade: James Espey, Tom Jago and Peter Fleck, the veterans behind brands such as Baileys, Chivas Regal and what became Johnnie Walker Blue Label. Their mission was to rescue forgotten parcels of extraordinary spirit, and their first find set the standard: aged casks of blended Scotch discovered in a dunnage warehouse at Auchentoshan distillery in the Scottish Lowlands. Between them, the three founders counted well over a century of experience building the world's most famous drinks brands.

The blend had been destined for bottling as a 12-year-old in the mid-1970s but was left to slumber, quietly concentrating for three further decades. Espey called it “a freak of a blend,” recalling, per The Spirits Business, that “it was like nectar; old but fresh.” Each bottle was presented in an old-style rum bottle with a wax seal, accompanied by a 50ml miniature for tasting and a book telling the whisky's story.

As Release No. 1 of a house that went on to define ultra-rare spirits curation before its acquisition by Sazerac, the 1960 blend is both a collectible and a founding document. Blends of this age and provenance almost never survive intact, and with fewer than 1,400 bottles ever filled, each remaining example represents a vanishing piece of mid-century Scotch whisky history.

• Size: 750ml
• Proof: 104 (52% ABV)
• Age: 48 Years
• Origin: Scotland
• Distillery: The Last Drop Distillers (independent blender and bottler)
• Whisky Type: Blended Scotch Whisky
• Vintage: 1960 (youngest component)
• Series: The Last Drop Release No. 1 (2008)
• Production: 1,347 bottles; casks discovered at Auchentoshan distillery; each bottle with 50ml miniature and book