The Old Pulteney distillery was founded in 1826 by James Henderson in
Wick, a fishing village in the far north-east of Scotland. The town lies next
to the Wick River and used to be a Royal Burgh in the 16th century. The
part of Wick where the distillery is located was called Pulteneytown; it used
to be a separate town until 1902. Both Pulteneytown and Old Pulteney are
named after Sir William Pulteney, a governor of the British Fisheries Society.

The town experienced a 'boom' in the 19th century thanks to the herring
industry. The bay was filled with hundreds of fishing boats and at a certain
point the local herring economy became so overheated that the authorities
had to declare an alcohol prohibition to prevent things from running out of
control. So, the Pulteney distillery was located in a 'dry town' for a while.

The Old Pulteney distillery is fairly unique in the sense that it's located within a town; as
far as I know only Bowmore, Oban and Springbank share this trait. Pultneytown was
built by Thomas Telford as a fishing village; the streets were named after Thomas' friends.
The town was later improved by the engineer Thomas Stevenson, father of the famous
writer Robert Louis Stevenson (the author of 'Treasure Island'). Meanwhile, the Henderson
family was still in control of the Old Pulteney distillery - and they remained in control until
1920 when Old Pulteney was sold to James Watson & Co. Ltd. from Dundee. They didn't
hang on to the distillery for long; in 1923 it was sold to John Dewar's & Sons Ltd. 

John Dewar & Sons owned the Old Pulteney distillery
for only two years; in 1925 it was taken over by the
Distillers Company Ltd. (DCL). The DCL decided to
close the distillery five years later in 1930. The Old
Pulteney distillery remained inactive for 2 decades
until 1951 when Old Pulteney was resurrected by
R. Cumming; a lawyer from Banff in Speyside. This
'amateur' sold the distillery to Hiram Walker in 1955
who decided to renovate Pulteney in 1958. One year
later the maltings at Old Pulteney were closed.

In 1961 the owners of Old Pulteney were sold to Allied Breweries which changed its name to Allied Lyons in 1981 and to Allied Domecq plc in 1994. In 1995 the distillery was acquired by Inver House Distillers. They released a 12 years old official bottling in 1997, which was followed by older expressions a few years later.

1) The northernmost town of mainland Scotland is John O'Groats; less than 20 miles north of the town of Wick and the Old Pultney distillery. The Old Pulteney distillery isn't the northernmost distillery in Scotland though... Highland Park and Scapa are located on the Orkney islands a little further to the north. At some point there were even rumours about the Blackwood distillery on the Shetland islands, but it seems those plans are definitely cancelled.

2) The warehouses at the distillery have room for circa 30,000 casks - most of them bourbon casks.

3) Old Pulteney has two stills at the moment, but around the turn of the century they still had three.
The two small spirit stills that were utilised at that time were later replaced by a single, larger still.

4) The Old Pulteney whisky became an important part of the 'Ballantines' blends.

5) The lawyer R. Cumming who bought Old Pulteney in 1951 had bought Balblair distillery two years earlier.

6) More trivia about Old Pulteney will be added later...
 

Old Pulteney 12yo (40%, OB, Bottled +/- 2008)
Nose: Malty, rich & fruity. Whiffs of old fashioned candy. A little bit of oil as well.
Shines for a few minutes and then settles down, showing more metallic notes.
Taste: Solid start & centre. However, towards the finish it grows quite bitter. Lacks some sweetness.
Score: 79 points - a solid malt whisky with a short-lived complexity in the nose.

Old Pulteney 17yo (46%, OB, Bottled +/- 2008)
Nose: Sharp and veggy start, dropping off quickly. Very different from a '2005' batch I tried earlier.
Then it builds itself up as a more mainstream malt again with gentle fruity and flowery notes.
Taste: Smooth start, but a strong bitterness takes over. Slightly metallic. Some aspirin in the finish.
Score: 74 points - oddly enough I personally prefer the 12yo by a few points.

Old Pulteney 21yo (46%, OB, Bottled +/- 2008)
Nose: I added too much water during my first try, but it was still big, rich and sweet. Spicy too.
Growing complexity over time. The bouquet showed more veggy notes during a second try.
Taste: Smooth and sweet. Pleasant, slightly fruity centre. Fairly 'middle of the road' with a bitter finish.
Score: 81 points - recommendable, and my favourite expression of Old Pulteney so far.

Old Pulteney 12yo (40%, OB, Bottled +/- 2005)
Nose: Dusty and a little farmy. Malty. Rotting milk powder. Quite odd. Is this another bad nose day?
Second try: Sweet and polished in the nose. Malty. I was WAAAAY off during my first try. Quite nice, actually.
Taste: Phew.... Astringent and not much else. Feels like I just swallowed a tube of aspirins... Am I crazy?
Score: 79 points - not too expressive in the nose and not THAT impressive on the palate, but very drinkable.

Old Pulteney 17yo (46%, OB, Bottled +/- 2005)
Nose: Glue - that's all for a long time. Some spices emerge after a few minutes. Malty? MOTR.
It seems slightly more expressive during round II. A little sweet and a little malty. Again, MOTR.
Taste: Watery at first. No character, depth or development. It powers up over time, but too little too late.
That being said, if you wait long enough this actually becomes quite pleasant. It really needs time.
Score: 80 points - not too bad on the palate either - I was way off with my initial score in the 50's.
 

These were not all the (official and independent) expressions of Old Pulteney whisky I've tried over the years.
My Track Record used to contain a complete overview of all the single malts I've tried, but when I passed the 2000 malts mark (and the complete whisky list wouldn't fit on two separate HTML pages anymore) I gave up. My Liquid Log still contains my tasting notes on most single malts I've sampled and scored, though. You can find a specific expression through the search box at the top of each distillery profile. The mAlmanac now contains (purely personal) selections of some of the best single malts and the worst whiskies I've tried so far - as well as the ones with the highest 'Bang-For-Your-Buck' value. But those tasting notes and scores only reflect my own, purely personal opinions.

On Serge's distillery profile on Whiskyfun you can find another perspective on the whisky made at this distillery.
Check out the Malt Maniacs Monitor on Malt Maniacs for my scores on all expressions I've tried so far - and those of almost all the other certified malt maniacs as well. The Malt Maniacs Matrix contains a few thousand single malts that were sampled and scored by at least four different malt maniacs, so you can compare our individual opinions.
 
 

The beautiful picture above of a glorious seascape
was the winner in a photo competition that was
organised by Old Pulteney in 2008. A great job!

Old Pulteney whisky

2001 - Pacific Spirits (a subsidiary of the Great Oriole Group) acquires Inver House for circa $85,000,000.-
 
2004 - A 17yo official bottling is released. Initially it was bottled at an ABV of 40% and 43%, but around 2006 the alcohol percentage is increased to 46%.
 
2006 - Pacific Spirits UK is acquired by International Beverage Holdings.
 
2009 - Old Pulteney releases a 30 years old official bottling at the fairly unusual ABV of 44%.
I imagine this was a fairly small batch and some casks could have dropped below the legal minimum of 40%.