Founded in the Orkney Islands in 1885 by John Townsend, a distiller from Speyside, the Scapa distillery is, alongside its neighbour Highland Park, the most northerly distillery in Scotland. The distillery was mothballed in 1994 by its then owner (Allied Distillers) and only a few distillations completed by the Highland Park team enabled Scapa to survive. It officially began production again in 2005, after it was bought by the French spirits giant Pernod Ricard.

A 10 year old Orkney single malt from the Scapa distillery in a litre format, bottled for the duty free market in the 1980s and 1990s. Alongside the 12 year old version, this was one of the distillery’’s last releases before it was mothballed in 1994.