Ben Nevis 1966 - 21 Year Old - Gordon & MacPhail - Connoisseurs Choice

Founded in 1825 by ‘Long John’ MacDonald, Ben Nevis is one of the classic Highland distilleries. Ben Nevis was purchased in the 1940s by Joseph Hobbs, who fitted a Coffey still enabling the distillery to produce both malt and grain whisky. A mothballed Ben Nevis was sold in 1981 to Long John Distillers (Whitbread), who refurbished the distillery and restarted production before selling up in 1989 to the Japanese firm Nikka, under whose stewardship the distillery has thrived.

For much of its early life Ben Nevis supplied the famous Dew of Ben Nevis blended whisky and single malt official bottlings were sporadic. That all changed after 1989, when Nikka bottled a 63-year-old Ben Nevis 1926 and embarked on an impressive run of vintage single casks and small batches alongside a core range 10-year-old. The early Nikka bottlings of 1960s & ‘70s vintages are particularly highly sought after. Independent Ben Nevis is abundant.

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.