Glenesk 1984-1997 - Gordon & MacPhail - Connoisseurs Choice

Originally built in 1897, Hillside / Glenesk had a chequered past during which its name and function changed frequently - the distillery was earlier known as Highland Esk, North Esk or Montrose and was at different times used to distil either malt or grain whisky, or just as a maltings for other distilleries.

Diageo forerunners DCL took over what was then the Montrose grain distillery in 1953, and turned it into the Hillside malt whisky distillery in 1964 under their Scottish Malt Distillers subsidiary. Hillside produced old style grassy, minerally single malt whisky until its closure in 1985, by which time the name had been changed, for the final time, to Glenesk.

Hillside / Glenesk was never officially bottled in its lifetime; at auction, the best Hillsides are the official Rare Malts editions released between 1995-97, while most independent bottlings use the Glenesk name.

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.