Glen Elgin 2007-2021 - 13 Year Old - Carn Mor Strictly Limited

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.

Càrn Mòr is a series of independent bottlings from Morrison Scotch Whisky Distillers (MSWD), the family company run by Brian Morrison, the former chairman of Morrison Bowmore, and his son Jamie Morrison. The company also owns the Old Perth blended whisky brand and commenced distillation at their new Lowland distillery Aberargie in 2017.

The first Càrn Mòr whiskies were bottled in 2007/8 and the Morrisons keep up a prolific bottling schedule, with several hundred Càrn Mòr releases to date. As of 2023, Càrn Mòr have two main ranges, the Càrn Mòr Strictly Limited series of youngish small batch whiskies bottled at 47.5%, and the Càrn Mòr Celebration of the Cask series, the majority of which are much older single cask whiskies bottled at cask strength.