In 1987 a group of distillery managers from Scottish Malt Distillers (SMD) met for a tasting session, with each manager bringing a sample of their favourite cask from their respective distilleries. As there were nearly thirty of them, the session was no doubt long and arduous, but the outcome was deemed worthy of the effort: in early 1988, the winner of that session - a 15-year-old Glen Elgin sherry cask that weighed in at a hefty 60.2% - became the first Manager’s Dram bottling.

The Manager’s Dram whiskies were never for sale to the general public - instead they were a perk for the staff of SMD and its successors United Distillers and Diageo. The bottles were sold to staff (and occasionally gifted to VIPs) on condition that they could not be resold until after the employee had left the company.

Predictably, the interest and demand from whisky fans for these staff-only cask strength bottlings was sky-high as soon as their existence became known. The prospect of owning a special single cask whisky selected by some of the most legendary distillers in the industry ensured that any bottles that came to the secondary market were immediately snapped up by collectors.

The success of the first Manager’s Dram edition was such that another cask was selected and bottled before the end of 1988. Thereafter, two bottles appeared each year until 1992 when the Manager’s Dram became a single annual release, perhaps due to the logistical issues that organising a tasting for so many luminaries entailed.

A great many all-time classic bottles have appeared in the Manager’s Dram range, particularly in the early pre-millennium period. The committee of distillery managers showed a particular fondness for sherry casks in these first few years, with the Caol Ila 15-year-old released in 1990, the 16-year-old Oban Bicentenary bottling released in 1994 at an enormous 64%, and 1998’s Clynelish 17-year-old all particularly highly prized among modern-day whisky fans.  Other great sherry casks in the series include examples from Benrinnes, Cragganmore, Blair Athol and Aberfeldy, each of which rank among their distillery’s best ever official bottlings.

Sadly the legendary Manager’s Dram tasting sessions are now long-discontinued, but the series remains an ongoing project and is still coming up with some terrific whiskies, with recent examples including a 17-year-old Talisker in 2011 and a Lagavulin 11-year-old bottled in 2013. The Manager’s Drams have retained their cachet with whisky fans, and the most famous bottlings now change hands at auction for prices in the thousands.