
Buy rare and selected Duncan Taylor Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Duncan Taylor has its origins in Glasgow, where the company originally operated as a trader and broker for the whisky industry. After Prohibition was abolished in the United States, businessman Abe Rosenberg and his two brothers applied for a licence to trade in alcoholic beverages. Shortly after the Second World War, Rosenberg and Charlie Guttman, the owner of Paddington Industries, decided to set up a company to import J and B Scotch Whisky into the USA. Initially, business was slow and the company only imported around 25,000 cases per year. His expertise in sales and distribution made the company one of the largest in the United States with sales of more than 3.5 million cases in over 30 years. The company was eventually sold to Grand Met in 1980.
Abe Rosenberg was not only a very savvy businessman, but also a passionate lover of Scotch whisky and single malt whisky in particular. As early as the early 1960s, he bought casks of new fillings from a large number of distilleries throughout Scotland and agreed that the casks he acquired would continue to be matured at the distilleries. He also had a fondness for the types of whisky that were predominantly used for blending at the time and are among the most sought-after single malt whiskies today. Through years of selecting and buying casks from the distilleries, Duncan Taylor finally had his own stock of more than 3000 casks of single malt and single grain whiskies averaging around 35 years old and at the same time the stock of one of the world s largest collections of old and rare whiskies in private ownership. In 1994, Abe Rosenberg died at the age of 85, the company ceased operations and trading and at that time owned almost 4000 casks of whisky with many treasures, especially from the 1960s and 1970s, all of which were still stored untouched in the distilleries.
After his death, the Ape and Susi Foundation, named after Ape Rosenberg and his wife, was continued as part of a charitable foundation to sell the existing whisky casks for good purposes. Duncan Taylor took over the marketing and bottling for the American company. In 2001, Euan Shand and his partner Alan Gordon took over Duncan Taylor and moved the headquarters from New York to Huntly that year. In December 2002, the company also opened a dedicated whisky shop, also on its own premises in Huntly, to showcase the company s products and introduce the new brand to the UK market. Since the acquisition, Duncan Taylor and Co have bottled several cask strength single malt and single grain whiskies which have been highly acclaimed within the whisky trade as well as by whisky connoisseurs and enthusiasts on all continents and have won several awards. In particular, the single cask bottlings from Duncan Taylor s old Rare Auld edition series are considered almost legendary today.