Knockdhu 1974 - Connoisseurs Choice Miniature

Knockdhu is a Highland distillery whose clean, high quality single malt whisky is officially bottled as An Cnoc, due to the perceived likelihood of confusion with the Knockando distillery. Inver House bought Knockdhu in 1988 from Diageo forerunners United Distillers, who had mothballed the distillery in 1983. Production at Knockdhu began again in 1989 and Inver House introduced the An Cnoc name in the early 1990s for a shortlived 12-year-old official bottling. 

After reverting to the Knockdhu name for a pair of highly-regarded 21-year-old and 23-year-old official bottlings at the turn of the millennium, the An Cnoc brand was given a transformative overhaul by Inver House for a hugely successful relaunch in 2003. A variety of vintage and age statement bottlings have appeared since, alongside several no-age-statement bottlings and even some peated whiskies. Independent bottlings of Knockdhu are relatively rare.

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.