Buy rare and selected White Horse Blended Malt Scotch Whisky online

The roots of White Horse whisky go back to 1742, when the current Lagavulin distillery was still a moonshine still. The first bottlings were produced around 1890 by James Logan Mackie. However, his company, Mackie and Co., had been in existence for longer (founded around 1884). The name White Horse is derived from the famous White Horse Cellar Inn in Edinburgh, a historic inn and stagecoach station dating back to the 18th century. This inn was a well-known starting point for journeys to London and symbolised quality and reliability at the time.
James Mackie s nephew, Peter Mackie (later Sir Peter Mackie), was a driving force behind the success of the brand. He was a dynamic and sometimes controversial figure in the whisky industry. He inherited the company and was also heavily involved in the Craigellachie distillery and at times controlled Lagavulin. White Horse has strong historical links with the Islay distillery Lagavulin. Peter Mackie was the agent for Lagavulin, and this peaty single malt was at the heart of the White Horse blend for a long time, giving it its characteristic smoky flavour.
White Horse was one of the first Scotch whisky brands to consistently use screwcaps instead of corks, which was considered modern and practical at the time. Like many traditional brands, White Horse has changed ownership several times over the decades. Today, the brand belongs to the Diageo spirits group.
The White Horse is a blended Scotch whisky and a fine mature blend of malt whiskies (from malted barley) and grain whiskies (from other cereals), made up of forty select varieties from the Scottish islands, the Highlands and the Lowlands, with the unique flavour of Lagavulin, a single malt whisky from Islay in the Hebrides, at its heart. The exact blend has changed slightly over time, but the general flavour profile has typically remained the same.
Today, the old bottlings from the 1950s to the early 1980s of White Horse blended Scotch whisky and the iconic early 12 and 16-year-old Lagavulin Scotch whiskies are in particularly high demand. With their complex flavours and unique composition, they are certainly among the best blended malts and impressively demonstrate the unmistakable and original character of the White Horse distillery.