Scotland, Speyside. Distillery closed. Owner: Pernod Ricard.

Founded in 1897 by Thomas Mackenzie (owner of Dailuaine-Talisker Distilleries Ltd) to provide relief to its close neighbour Dailuaine, Imperial was in production for only a few months from the summer of 1898, before closing in 1899. In the space of just one century, the distillery was closed more often than it was in production. Its malt would be used in leading blends such as Teachers, Long John, Old Smuggler and Ballantine's, leaving little room to develop a range of single malts. Only Allied Distillers, which became the owner in 1989, would offer a 15 year old version in its Special Distillery Bottling range. For the rest, one would need to dig through the stocks of independent bottlers, and yet here also they are generally rare. Imperial is definitively an endangered malt.

A Speyside single malt aged for 9 years, distilled on 19 September 1990 and bottled in August 2000 by the Scottish independent bottler Gordon & MacPhail. A small batch version (cask 97/403 1,2) finished in a Calvados barrel and limited edition of 3,500 bottles worldwide.The Private Collections range, or “Director’’s Private Collection” as it was known at the time, was introduced in the early 1990s in Gordon & MacPhail’’s portfolio of whiskies. Two labels existed at the same time. The black label is for very old vintages and the white label for young versions with different wood finishes. The three oldest bottlings (black label) Mortlach 1942, Kinclaith 1963 and Glenlivet 1943 were bottled before the new millennium. This young Imperial is a perfect example of the company’’s first forays into wood finishes. Other distilleries then joined the adventure, including Caol Ila and Old Pulteney. Bottle equipped with a cork stopper and black foil seal.