William Sanderson set up as a liqueur and cordial maker in Leith in 1863 and turned his attention to whisky blending in the 1860s. In 1882, preparing for the Edinburgh International Exhibition of the following year, he is said to have made up a hundred sample blends in a hundred casks and invited a panel of friends to taste them blind. The vat numbered 69 was the unanimous favourite, and Sanderson — not a man to waste a marketing hook — kept the name on the label. Vat 69 has been sold under it ever since.
The brand passed through Booth's and Distillers Company Limited to Guinness and then Diageo, and remains in the portfolio today, though much diminished from its mid-century heyday. It was, famously, part of Ernest Shackleton's 1907 Nimrod expedition provisions — the cases recovered from Cape Royds in 2010 were a Mackinlay's whisky, but Shackleton took Vat 69 along too.
The current bottling is a grain-led everyday blend at 40% with no age statement. The nose is light, with cereal and vanilla; the palate soft and toffee-ed; the finish short and clean. There is little to complain about and less to be startled by.
Vat 69 is worth drinking for the story as much as the liquid. At around £17 it is a pragmatic blend with a proper Victorian pedigree, and that is more than most of its shelf-neighbours can claim.
