Tomatin 1968-2003 - Gordon & MacPhail - Connoisseurs Choice

Tomatin’s splendid Highland single malt whisky has long been an unsung hero, despite being at one point the largest distillery in Scotland, with a 1974 expansion taking the total number of stills to 23 before financial liquidation in the 1980s ushered in a long, stable era of Japanese ownership. Nowadays, Tomatin has cut back to 12 stills and has a capacity of around 5m litres per annum, although actual production is only around 2m litres. 

Tomatin has increased its profile recently, reaping the benefits of a strong wood policy, and awareness of the distillery’s quality is higher than ever thanks to some spectacular official and independent bottlings of 1970s vintages, the best of which show beautiful tropical fruit notes. The standard range is full of reliably high quality drams that punch above their price, and older bottlings of Tomatin are still very good value 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.