LOT ID: 0124-552
End Date : Feb 14 2024 08:00 PM
Macallan 12 Year Old. Liqueur Scotch Whisky. Rotation 1971. Bottled by Gordon & MacPhail under licence. 26 2/3 Fl Ozs. 100 Proof. No box.
A beautiful old bottle of Macallan 12-year-old 100-Proof (57.1%) bottled in 1971 by Gordon & MacPhail. This is an officially licensed Macallan from the days before the distillery took their official bottlings in-house, and comes in Gordon & MacPhail’s much-loved screen printed thistle bottle. This whisky would have been distilled in the late 1950s and matured in top-drawer sherry casks, and these high strength Macallans bottled in the 1970s are never less than spectacular.
FILLING LEVEL
High Neck
The grandest of Speyside’s blue chip distilleries, Macallan was founded in 1824 and carved a reputation for luxury single malt whisky in the 1980s with string of 18-year-old and 25-year-old sherry-matured vintage single malts distilled in the 1960s and 1970s, building on the renown of earlier highly-regarded licensed bottlings by Gordon & MacPhail and Campbell, Hope and King.
In the early 2000s, as the supply and quality of even the best sherry casks declined dramatically, Macallan introduced their Fine Oak series, an initially controversial range of bottlings that included bourbon-matured spirit in the cask recipe. While the Fine Oak series took some time to find its audience, Macallan’s status as the top Speyside distillery - particularly at auction - was already well-established and today a legion of eager Macallan fans ensure that each new luxury bottling from the distillery sells out immediately on release.
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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£4,000.00 | 14th February 2024 | 19:25 | |