The story of The Distillers Editions

The story behind The Distillers Edition

Have you ever wondered why there have been so many different releases of Diageo's Malt called "The Distillers Edition"?

Ever wondered why there are no apostrophes? (it's not The Distiller's Edition)

Whisky.dk I am personally a fan of the many flavors and have looked into the history of the products. They are called "The Distillers Edition" (and not Distiller's or Distillery) because these single malts were all owned and operated by The Distillers Company at one point.

The The Distillers Company was formed in 1877 and was born out of a trade association called the Scottish Distillers' Association from 1865. The company merged with John Walker & Son and Buchanan-Dewar in 1925. It was acquired by Guinness in 1886, which formed United Distillers, later renamed Diageo. The first DE Single Malts, which became available worldwide, were released in the 90s and have always used the same composition of casks since the beginning.

Here you can see which cask types - which go with which distilleries:

• Caol Ila - Moscatel
• Clynelish - Oloroso
• Cragganmore - Port
• Dalwhinnie - Oloroso
• Glenkinchie - Amontillado
• Lagavulin - PX
• Oban - Montilla Fino
• Royal Lochnagar - Muscat
• Talisker - Amoroso

Most of the time you will find that the release is about the same age as the "regular", a core term for the same distillery (i.e.: Lagavulin 16; Oban 14; etc.), but rather expressed as a vintage (i.e.: Lagavulin DE distilled 2001 bottle 2017; Talisker DE distilled 2006 bottle 2016; etc). In addition to years of aging and releases, they also have a sequential numbering system. For example, the current Lagavulin DE is 507. Not all Diageo's Single Malts are released as DEs every single year, but Lagavulin and Talisker have been distributed consistently. The extra aging gives a different flavor than the standard bottlings