Produced by Charles Mackinlay & Co Ltd, this was bottled in 1980s as a tribute to five generations of Mackinlay’s blending experience. Comes with matching branded jug by Seton Pottery.

A family firm for over 140 years, Charles Mackinlay & Co was established in 1815 as a wine merchant in Leith, quickly moving into the whisky business, registering their The Original Mackinlay blend in 1847. The company had strong links to the Inverness whisky industry, with a stake in Glen Mhor and Glen Albyn distillery, and was one of the earliest to advocate its distillery's single malts. It passed out o family control in 1961, eventually being bought by Invergordon Distillers in 1985, becoming part of Whyte & Mackay eight years later.

By the early 1980s the brand was the 11th best-selling Scotch in the UK, led by Mackinlay’s Legacy, which was bottled at 12, 17 and 21 years of age, and The Original Mackinlay. At the time, The Original contained ‘no less that 34% malt’, the majority of which was from Speyside. Although the name has changed to Mackinlay’s Original, the same recipe is still adhered to today by Whyte & Mackay’s master blender Richard Paterson. The current version is a vatting of malt and grain whiskies aged for at least five years and bottled at 40% abv.

The brand is most famous for being the whisky of choice of Sir Ernest Shackleton to accompany his 1907 expedition to the South Pole. The 25 cases of Mackinlay’s Rare Old Highland Malt were made to order at a specific 47.3% abv strong enough to withstand freezing temperatures.

In 2007 several bottles of Mackinlay’s Rare Old Highland Malt were found at Shackleton’s Antarctic base camp, and analysis found the whisky had been matured in American oak Sherry casks, and produced using Orkney peat in the malting process.

The liquid was recreated for two limited edition releases –The Discovery and The Journey – both of which contained malts from Glen Mhor and Dalmore among others.

The traditional way to savour scotch whisky is to add a dribble of water before sipping. True whisky connoisseurs say that adding a couple of drops of water to your glass actually improves and enhances the taste of the drink. A popular phrase used to talk about the phenomenon is that a drop or two of water helps to "open up" the taste of the whisky.