The blended whisky in release NO.08 was bottled by White Horse Distillers Ltd. Contributors to White Horse Blended whisky include: the Glen Elgin Distillery, the Port Dundas distillery, the Caol Ila Distillery, the Talisker distillery and possibly the short lived Malt Mill distillery.

The original bottle of 1958 White Horse blended whisky was bottled in a year which saw Sir Vivian Fuchs’ Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition complete the first overland crossing of Antarctica, as well as Brazil beating Sweden 5-2 to win the World Cup, Prince Charles’ formal investiture as Prince of Wales and the first patent for the iconic Lego brick.

ABOUT WHITE HORSE WHISKY

The White Horse blend was originally launched in 1890 and named after The White Horse Cellar Inn located on Edinburgh’s Canongate. The inn, itself allegedly named after Mary, Queen of Scots’ own white horse, stood at the beginning of the Great North Road and was the starting point for an eight-day stagecoach journey to London. The smokey heart of White Horse blended whisky shows its Islay influence, evidence of a long association with Lagavulin distillery, the blend’s spiritual home. Peter Mackie, Lagavulin's owner created White Horse whisky, which unsurprisingly ensured the Lagavulin malt known for a complex smoky finish would become a main component of the blend.

The 1958 date of this White Horse bottling makes it possible the blend includes whisky produced from the short-lived legendary micro distillery Malt Mill (1908-1960) built at the Lagavulin site. The Malt Mill distillery originated from a breakdown of an agreement allowing the use of Laphroaig distillery’s whisky output in Mackie's blends.

In an effort to identically recreate the Laphroaig distillery’s medicinal character, Mackie built an exact replica of the Laphroaig distillery; the Malt Mill. The result was a peated whisky unlike either Laphroaig or Lagavulin, and Malt Mill’s output was used as a contribution to Mackie’s White Horse and Ancient Scotch blends until it shut in 1960. Other malts have contributed to White Horse over the years, varying with the age of the bottling, and include Craigellachie, Cragganmore, Caol Ila and Talisker.

Other notable contributors are Glen Elgin, a fruity and lightly honeyed Speyside malt which remains a key component and continues to display the White Horse emblem at its distillery today, as well as the now defunct Port Dundas; once the neighbour of White Horse’s bottling hall and supplier of the grain whisky contained in the blend.