VAT 69 has remained unchanged since its launch over 100 years ago.
William Sanderson was born in Leith, Scotland, in 1839. He started an apprenticeship with a wine and spirituous liquors' producer at the age of 13. In 1863, he already owned his own business and produced liqueurs and whisky blends. In 1880, his son William Mark joined the business. William Mark convinced his father to bottle various blends of whisky.
The typical VAT 69 bottle was introduced to the market and was not changed for the next hundred years. In 1884, Sanderson bought the Glengarioch Distillery. It was situated in the middle of a barley field. The distillery was meant to ensure the delivery with grain whisky.
Sanderson took care that there were always new products to be blended, because DCL, which was a strong society at that time, controlled such a big amount of the production, that it could influence the supply of the competing company very sensitively.
Therefore, Sanderson, together with Usher and Bell founded a company to produce grain whisky, which still exists today as the "North British Distillery". Sanderson got a little Malt Whiskies that he needed to blend his VAT 69 from a friend, John Begg, who owned the "Royal Lochnagar Distillery".
When Begg died, Sanderson became director of Begg's Distillery. In 1933, Sanderson's company merged with Booth's Distilleries, which merged again with the DCL-Group in 1935. In autumn 1980, "Vat 69 Reserve" from the House of Sanderson had its world premiere in England. Chosen and optimal stored malt whisky are used to produce this De-Luxe-Whisky.
Despite the name, it is not a vatted malt but a blend of about 40 malt and grain whiskies.
