Craigellachie 1997-2014 - Gordon & MacPhail - Connoisseurs Choice

Craigellachie distillery was founded in 1890 by Sandy Brown and Peter Mackie and was absorbed into Diageo forerunner DCL in 1927. Craigellachie was expanded to four stills in 1964 but still uses worm tubs to condense its spirit. In 1998 Craigellachie was one of five distilleries sold to Bacardi along with the Dewar’s blend in order to gain the Monopolies & Mergers Commission’s blessing for the merger that created Diageo.

Craigellachie’s whisky was so important for the White Horse & Old Smuggler blends that DCL never bottled it as a single malt. DCL successors United Distillers released a 14-year-old Flora & Fauna bottling and a Rare Malts Edition in the 1990s shortly before the distillery was sold. After bottling a slightly lacklustre 14-year-old around the turn of the millennium, Bacardi/Dewar’s relaunched Craigellachie properly in 2014 to great acclaim. Independent Craigellachie used to be rather rare but is now abundant and generally excellent quality.

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.