Glen Moray 17 Year Old - The Golden Cask Miniature

One of Speyside’s larger distilleries, Glen Moray was the black sheep of Macdonald & Muir’s portfolio for decades, where it was understandably overshadowed by Glenmorangie (and later Ardbeg). The distillery was sold by Glenmorangie plc’s owners LVMH to French company La Martiniquaise at the end of 2008, since when it has supplied fillings for Label 5 blended whisky, which is unknown in the UK but one of the top ten Scotch whisky brands worldwide.

Away from the bottom shelf wine finishes first popularised in the Glenmorangie era, official bottlings of Glen Moray have included some superb old vintage editions, with the 1959 40-year-old and several excellent 1960s-70s vintage bottlings demonstrating what the distillery was really capable of. La Martiniquaise have not changed the formula much but deserve credit for releasing further prestige editions including the recent Glen Moray Mastery.

House of Macduff is an independent bottler of Scotch whiskies. The company is a subsidiary of Cumbrae Supply Co., and most of their releases are single malt and single grain whiskies under their Golden Cask brand. Cumbrae Supply Co. has been owned by the Macduff family since 1987 and has been bottling single malt whiskies since the 1990s. 

The Golden Cask series first appeared in 2002 and have released some terrific whiskies, including Bowmore, Highland Park, Macallan and a string of excellent Port Ellen casks. House of Macduff is also behind the rare Whisky Life series, a short run of casks selected by John McDougall around 2002, and proprietary brands including Burns Nectar single malt and the Selkie blended malt.