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A fresh start for The Antiquary
By Rupert HohwielerHighland distillery Tomatin has given legendary whisky brand The Antiquary a new lease of life, armed with a new look and contemporary appeal.

After a period in the relative whisky wilderness, The Antiquary is on the comeback trail.
Steeped in history and dripping in prestige, the blended Scotch whisky brand, which has origins tracing back to the 1880s, has recently undergone a revival led by Tomatin and its blender and global ambassador Scott Adamson. The idea? First of all it’s “simply to make a great blended whisky,” Adamson says.
Although this may be the fundamental goal, there’s also a lot more that ties the rebuild together. For starters, “you need to understand the history”, explains Adamson, who has been working on the project for a number of years.
While it’s hard to condense the brand’s long history into a few words, it was founded in Edinburgh by John Hardie and his brother William in the 1880s, who transferred their tea-blending prowess into a wine and spirits merchants called J. & W. Hardie, where The Antiquary became a key part of the business. Named after Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley novel, the whisky would go on to establish itself in Europe with the brothers, also adept salesman, travelling all over the continent to visit hotel bars, asking if they stocked Antiquary and would respond, cheekily, in surprise when venues would say they didn’t – claiming the whisky was ‘all the rage in London’.
From here, the brand’s status as a major player globally would only grow, and it would also go through different names and different owners, before Tomatin picked it up in 1996. While the rise of single malts put its popularity on hold for a bit, Tomatin and Adamson believe now is the time to return it to its former glory.
A new direction for blended whisky
Careful to make sure The Antiquary’s 140-year legacy is properly represented, Adamson notes: “I’ve spent a long period of time looking into the history of the brothers that founded this whisky, looking into their business, how they made the liquid, and I’ve tried to reimagine what these blended whiskies should be.”

However, Adamson is also keen to put a fresh perspective on the brand, so all ages – from the younger generation to the older whisky heads – can appreciate and relate to what it offers. The refresh is led with a core range of three whiskies: a 15-year-old, a 21-year-old and a 30-year-old (priced between £45-£275/US$58-US$355).
“Blended whisky is experiencing a revival with a clear focus on spirit quality as opposed to quantity or consistency. We are embracing this modern approach to blending whilst marrying our whisky in the style of wine cask that would have been used by the Hardies,” he observes.
The trio are made with a mix of premium blends of Highland and Speyside malts with lowland grain. The 15-year-old was married in red wine Claret casks from Bordeaux and has flavours of red berries and an element of dark chocolate. The 21-year-old was married in Tawny Port casks sourced from Symington Family Estates in Portugal. Lastly, the 30-year-old was matured for more than three years in Sherry casks and has a profile of sultanas, tobacco, cherries and more. Each of the three whiskies brings something unique and distinct to the table.
Antiquary has always been regarded as a premium blend and the team at Tomatin will put its inventory of stock from around Scotland into the new blends, so it continues in the same fashion. “Tomatin was once the largest distillery in the world and we are able to use those casks to create really exceptional spirits that we then put into the wine casks that we wanted to use,” Adamson adds. Over the years, consumers will see a variety of different releases from Antiquary, with stock set aside for even higher aged expressions and other additions that will be exploratory.
For now though, the focus is on the core products and the quality of the liquid. As Adamson says: “The range is inspired by the past, but is firmly placed for a modern whisky consumer – it’s been a pleasure to work on one of the oldest Scotch whiskies in the world, interacting with the history and learning more about it than we’ve ever known before.”
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