Mannochmore 1990-2019 - 28 Year Old - Carn Mor - Celebration Of The Cask - Single Cask 10241

Mannochmore is a quiet, but very large, Diageo distillery built in 1971 next to the Glenlossie distillery in Speyside. The vast majority of Mannochmore’s spirit goes to Diageo’s Haig blended whisky, with the only ongoing official bottling being the 12-year-old Flora and Fauna edition. Mannochmore’s house style tends towards what might be considered as a more typical Highland style: fresh, grassy, ultra-pure malt that is frequently quite austere and therefore very well-suited to long ageing. 

The best official Mannochmores are the super-austere Rare Malts 1974 edition which appeared in 1997, the same year as the equally excellent 18-year-old Manager’s Dram; and the more oak-driven 1990 vintage bottlings done for the Special Releases in 2009 and 2016. Independent Mannochmores are abundant, but most are quite young; older casks appear occasionally from the likes of Gordon & MacPhail, Cadenhead’s and the SMWS and are well worth tracking down.

Càrn Mòr is a series of independent bottlings from Morrison Scotch Whisky Distillers (MSWD), the family company run by Brian Morrison, the former chairman of Morrison Bowmore, and his son Jamie Morrison. The company also owns the Old Perth blended whisky brand and commenced distillation at their new Lowland distillery Aberargie in 2017.

The first Càrn Mòr whiskies were bottled in 2007/8 and the Morrisons keep up a prolific bottling schedule, with several hundred Càrn Mòr releases to date. As of 2023, Càrn Mòr have two main ranges, the Càrn Mòr Strictly Limited series of youngish small batch whiskies bottled at 47.5%, and the Càrn Mòr Celebration of the Cask series, the majority of which are much older single cask whiskies bottled at cask strength.