An out of production 14 Year old that was bottled in 2007 meaning it was distilled in the 1990s.
From a tiny distillery in Orkney, Scapa is often overlooked in favour of its more famous neighbour Highland Park. This 14yo was quite a short-lived bottling -it was introduced by then new owners Chivas Brothers to replace the old 12yo, but was subsequently superseded by the now-familiar 16 year old standard official bottling.
By the end of the 19th century there were three distilleries operational on Orkney: Highland Park, Stromness (both of which dated from the early part of the century) and, from 1885, Scapa. Any distillery built at this time was free to try and exploit the growing interest in blends. Scapa was no different. Indeed, it was built by a blender, Glasgow’s John Townsend. It was damaged by fire in 1919, but rebuilt. In 1936 it was bought by Bloch Bros. [see Glen Scotia, Glengyle] who ran it for close on two decades before selling up to Hiram Walker which through mergers ended up as Allied Distillers. In 1959 a Lomond still was installed which ran as intended until 1979.
Production ceased in 1994 with occasional runs being done by the crew from Highland Park. In 2004, however it was released as single malt and a major refurbishment of the distillery began. In 2005 it became part of the Pernod Ricard stable and the refurbishment was completed. The new owners redesigned the packaging of the single malt and upped the age from 14 years to 16.
In 2015 a visitor’s centre was opened and the introduction of a new, extended range was announced.
