Convalmore 1969-1991 - Gordon & MacPhail - Connoisseurs Choice

Convalmore is one of the greatest lost Speyside distilleries of modern times. The distillery was founded in 1893, and was part of the Buchanan’s stable when the latter joined Distillers Company Limited in 1925, with much of its operational life spent producing whisky for the Black & White blend. Convalmore was expanded in the 1960s before being mothballed by DCL in 1985 and sold to neighbours William Grant & Sons, whose Glenfiddich and Balvenie distilleries adjoin the Convalmore site.

Almost unknown during its operational lifetime, Convalmore’s deliciously old school waxy, fruity malt whisky was championed in the 1980s by indie bottlers including Gordon & MacPhail and Cadenhead’s.  Convalmore’s first ever official bottling was a superb Rare Malts Edition in 2003, almost twenty years after the distillery had closed its doors, and subsequent Diageo Special Release Convalmores in 2005, 2013 and 2017 also met with universal acclaim.

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.