Private Cellar Bruichladdich 1990, 17 Years Old

[shanel23]

I've a bottle of this which I bought on one visit to Edinburgh back in the 90's -

I've tried a few whiskey valuators in the UK but none responded to my emails

Also I got onto Bruichladdich themselves and they were not able to help either ...

Anybody any ideas on it worth - it's a 1L and in a black cardboard box . I plan to keep it -just curious thats all .

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Can you give more detail on the bottle ... just seems a bit strange that 1990 is on a 17yo bottle that you bought in the 90's. Unless it just says 17yo bottled in 1990 which seems odd.

However I'm not sure that value would have risen through the roof as Bruchladdich have some many collector bottles. In saying that they do have a lot of collectors of their bottles and if this is one of the earlier bottles it could well have doubled or even trippled in value.

[TheWhiskeyBro]

The Private Cellar range is from Gordon & McPhail afaik, a picture would be great or a full description of the text on the bottle... initial impressions are that it's relatively scarce (presumably single cask?), however if it was just bottled in 2007, then its quite recent and may not have appreciated but possibly depreciated???

But presumably it was distilled in 1973 and bottled in 1990 as a 17yo???

More often than not the year on the label is the year of distillation... all a bit confusing

Also I notice it's a 1L bottle, duty free one-off special by any chance?

Speculation... speculation...

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Found a basic description on WHisky Mag so it would appear it was distilled in 1990 and bottled in 2007. If this is indeed you bottle and a correct description of your bottle then it is a modern Independent bottling and therefore will not have rasised in value greatly. The trick in collecting Scotch is buying limited Original Bottles (OB's) i.e. Bottles bottled by the distillery and not Independent bottlers and then you have a better chance of them rising in value.

This does not mean that you don't have a great whisky on your hands though ... could well be a cracker.

There are distilleries of course that buck this trend like Ardbeg and Macallan but for instance if you had an OB Ardbeg 1977 and a IB 1977 Ardbeg the OB would be worth much more.

Private Cellar Bruichladdich 1990, 17 Years Old

Brand Private Cellar
Expression Bruichladdich 1990, 17 Years Old
Type Scotch Whisky / Single Malt
Age 17 Year Old
Vintage 1990
Abv 43.00%
Produced at Speyside Distillers
Region Islay
Website http://www.gordonandmacphail.com

[Willie JJ]

The Private Cellar range is from Gordon & McPhail afaik,

The G&M range you refer to is called the Private Collection. This bottle appears to be from the Private Cellar range which is produced by the same folk that do Scott's Selection and own the Speyside distillery. Private Cellar is the junior range and is generally bottled at 43% as opposed to Scott's Selection which is bottled at cask strength. The Scott's bottlings have a very good reputation and all the ones I've had have been very good. The Private Cellar casks are probably the ones that weren't good enough for the Scott's range and my experience bears this out.

Clearly if this is 17yo 1990 distillate then the poster could not possibly have purchased it in the 1990s. In this case the bottle is probably worth more or less what was paid for it.

[TheWhiskeyBro]

Details on this are scarce indeed, I think all we can say is that the contents are likely to be very drinkable

Other than the whiskymag reference, I found this one,

http://d.hatena.ne.jp/barvirgo/20071107/1194422335

So it seems your bottle won a 'Gold' in a Independent Bottler challenge of 167 whiskies conducted by 'Barvirgo' in Japan... hmmm...

Rare & obsure independent bottling... yes
Collectable... probably not
Worth keeping... yes but for your 'private cellar'
Worth drinking... probably, worth comparing with a distillery botlling (OB) in a head to head, enjoy

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

The G&M range you refer to is called the Private Collection. This bottle appears to be from the Private Cellar range which is produced by the same folk that do Scott's Selection and own the Speyside distillery. Private Cellar is the junior range and is generally bottled at 43% as opposed to Scott's Selection which is bottled at cask strength. The Scott's bottlings have a very good reputation and all the ones I've had have been very good. The Private Cellar casks are probably the ones that weren't good enough for the Scott's range and my experience bears this out.

Clearly if this is 17yo 1990 distillate then the poster could not possibly have purchased it in the 1990s. In this case the bottle is probably worth more or less what was paid for it.

Excellent insite there Willie ... if anybody knows around here you do ....

Hi shanel23, WIllie is a very experienced Scotch aficiniado and I would take his comments as pretty much on the ball.

Put it down to experience, replace it with a nicer bottle and crack it open and enjoy it . I know I bought many a bottle like this too in my early days.

In all fairness the majoroty of whiskies are good but in our persuit of whisk(e)y perfection we are always on the look out for great whiskies.

[shanel23]

Thanks for all the replies guys - guess I'll just have to open it and drink it !

I really didn't think it was going to be really valuable but just wanted to check really.

cheers

Shane

[shanel23]

Trawling through the whiskeyauction site I found this went for €100

http://whiskyauction.com/cgi-bin/auctio ... 100&mini=0

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Trawling through the whiskeyauction site I found this went for €100

http://whiskyauction.com/cgi-bin/auctio ... 100&mini=0

Is that the same one as you have as we were thinking it was a Independently bottled version you had. That appears to be a Distillery released version which would mean a higher value.

If this is not like your bottle you cannot compare values if it is identical well then congratulations

[shanel23]

Cheers -yes it may mistake originally in the way I described it.

Yep the one I have is identical to the one on that website ( cool website by the way )

[jcskinner]

But that Whiskyauction bottle is a distillery bottling, 17 yo, with no vintage year specified.
If your bottle looks the same, where did the "Private Cellar" and 1990 come from?
Either way, a 17 yo Bruichladdich is no bad thing. But whereas an OB might with a fair wind claim a price at auction such as that one did, I have to agree with the others that an independent bottling would not, even though it might well be from a single cask and be a superlative whisky.

[shanel23]

As I said JC when I did an original search for some details of the bottle all I got back was this link ( Bruchladdich 17yr old 43% )

http://www.whiskymag.com/whisky/brand/p ... y4174.html

and I made an assumption that this was mine - Now I know it wasn't - Obviously now I'll know better in future when reseaching bottles ( not that I have that many that I know nothing about )