Kinclaith 1967-1991 - Gordon & MacPhail - Connoisseurs Choice

Kinclaith distillery came to life in 1957, when two pot stills were installed at the Strathclyde grain distillery in Glasgow. Kinclaith’s Lowland single malt whisky was made for owner Seager Evans’ blended whiskies, most notably Long John, but the distillery was dismantled in 1975 by new owners Whitbread to accommodate an expansion of Strathcyde’s grain whisky capacity.

Kinclaith was never officially bottled, but independent bottlings by Cadenhead’s and Gordon & MacPhail began in the late 1970s and early 1980s. More recently some 1969 and 1975 Kinclaiths were bottled by Signatory and Duncan Taylor, but the last of these appeared in 2020, so it seems possible that the last cask has been bottled. Kinclaith’s quality was generally surprisingly high and its rarity means that this is one of the most valuable ‘unicorn’ malts at auction.

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.