Dallas Dhu 1982-2005 - Gordon & MacPhail

Speyside distillery Dallas Dhu began production in 1899 and was acquired by Diageo forerunner DCL in 1929. The distillery suffered a serious fire in 1939 but was rebuilt and subsequently made malt whisky for blends from 1947 until its closure by DCL in 1983. Dallas Dhu was sold to Historic Scotland in 1986 and converted into a distillery museum with the equipment still intact; although previous plans to resume whisky production came to nothing, in 2024 it was announced that Aceo Ltd would be restoring the distillery to full use.

No official bottlings of Dallas Dhu’s whisky appeared until the mid-1990s when a handful of superb Rare Malts Editions were released. Historic Scotland subsequently bottled a number of Dallas Dhu malt whiskies, including the last 1983 vintage cask ever filled at the distillery. Independent bottlings of Dallas Dhu single malt are becoming very scarce now; the best previous examples are from G&M, Signatory and Cadenhead’s.

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.