End Date : Jun 25 2025 08:00 PM
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Banff 1974. 13 Year Old. Bottled by Gordon & MacPhail for their Connoisseurs Choice series. 75cl. 40%. No box.
A fascinating Banff 1974 Highland single malt whisky bottled in the mid-1980s as a 13-year-old by Gordon & MacPhail as one of the later brown label bottlings for their classic Connoisseurs Choice range. Along with a couple of early single cask examples from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society bottled a couple of years later around the turn of the 1990s, at 13 years old this is one of the youngest known Banff whiskies bottled, appearing just a few years after the distillery had closed for good in 1983.

Founded in 1824, Banff distillery relocated in 1863 to a new site which burned down in 1877. The distillery was rebuilt and operated until 1932, when the owners went bust. Banff was bought by Diageo forerunners DCL who kept the distillery closed until after WWII. Banff was hit by the Luftwaffe in 1941, destroying much maturing stock, and in 1959 the distillery was badly damaged again by an explosion in the stillhouse. Production resumed once more, but in 1983 DCL closed the distillery during the whisky lake crisis. The distillery buildings were destroyed by fire for the final time in 1991.
Banff’s very old school, astringent Highland whisky was prized by blenders but after the DCL takeover the only official bottling was a 1982 Rare Malts Edition Banff released in 2004, over twenty years after the distillery closed. However, in October 2021 an official bottling of Banff 15-year-old bottled between 1921-32 was found and auctioned by Whisky-Online, fetching £16,200. Independent Banff was easy to find in the 1990s and early Noughties, but has slowed to trickle and the last casks will soon be exhausted.

Founded in Elgin as a merchant grocer and wine and spirits wholesaler in 1895, Gordon & MacPhail are one of the oldest independent whisky bottlers in Scotland. Co-founder James Gordon owned shares in Longmorn, Strathisla and Glen Grant, and Gordon & MacPhail were soon bottling officially licensed single malts from several distilleries and sending empty casks from their wine business to be filled with new make spirit and returned for maturation in their Elgin warehouses.
Gordon & MacPhail pioneered high strength single malts at 100 proof (57%) in the 1950s, and in 1968 the company launched Connoisseurs Choice, one of the first integrated ranges of small batch independent whisky bottlings. After finally becoming distillers themselves with the purchase of Benromach in 1993, in 2010 Gordon & MacPhail bottled the first 70-year-old single malt whisky (a Mortlach 1938) and in 2020 the company released the first ever 80-year-old whisky: Glenlivet 1940.
BID | DATE | TIME | |
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£290.00 | 25th June 2025 | 07:20 PM | |
