Glen Elgin 1995-2009 - Gordon & MacPhail - Exclusive - Single Cask 1016

Founded in 1898, Glen Elgin distillery was taken over by Diageo forerunners Distillers Company Limited in 1930 and was immediately licensed to their recently-acquired subsidiary White Horse Distillers, where it has been one of the keystone malts for the White Horse blend ever since.

Glen Elgin’s importance to White Horse, one of the world’s biggest Scotch whisky brands, has meant that official bottlings of the distillery’s single malt have always been thin on the ground. A 12-year-old edition bearing the White Horse logo was bottled in the 1970s and 1980s, and a pair of famous Manager’s Dram sherry casks followed in 1988 and 1993.

Today, as in the ‘70s, the only ongoing official Glen Elgin is the 12-year-old, although there have been three Special Releases outings this century. Independent bottlings of Glen Elgin are widely available and generally very good 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.