LOT ID: 0524-571
End Date : Jul 03 2024 08:00 PM
One of Diageo’s smallest and most obscure distilleries, Glen Spey was built in Rothes in 1878. The distillery was soon acquired by W & A Gilbey (more famous for their gin), who merged into International Distillers and Vintners in 1962. IDV subsequently became part of Grand Metropolitan, which merged with Guinness to become Diageo in 1997.
Glen Spey has been supplying the J&B blend since the days of IDV, and official bottlings are extremely scarce. An official 8-year-old was bottled in the 1980s during the GrandMet era, but this was the first and only OB until the Flora & Fauna 12-year-old appeared from Diageo in 2001, since which there have been only a couple of single cask bottlings and one Special Release in 2010. Independent bottlings of Glen Spey are easy to find, with highly rated 1970s vintages by First Cask, Jack Weiber and Dewar Rattray among others.
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.
BID | DATE | TIME | |
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£52.50 | 2nd July 2024 | 20:17 | |