Today marks the beginning of a short series exploring blended Scotch from an earlier era. By ‘earlier’, I mean bottlings from roughly the 1960s through to the 2000s, although the main focus will be on the 1960s and 1970s.
We begin with three blends: Teacher’s Highland Cream, which has (kind of) appeared on the blog before; VAT 69, the long-established William Sanderson blend first created in 1882; and Cameron’s Black Prince, a name that was entirely new to me. Teacher’s and VAT 69 were major historic brands with distinctive identities, while Black Prince offers a more obscure point of comparison.
The aim of this review, and of however many follow, is not simply to indulge in nostalgia. Instead, it is to look at these older bottlings on their own terms and consider the familiar question: was whisky really better in the past?
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