Glentauchers 1979 - Gordon & MacPhail

A substantial but low-profile Speyside distillery producing fresh, clean, floral Speyside for its owners’ blends, Glentauchers started life with two stills in 1898 but was expanded to its current six stills in the mid-1960s. After a long period under DCL ownership Glentauchers was purchased in 1989 by Allied Distillers (now owned by Pernod Ricard) and has been a keystone malt for Ballantine’s ever since. In 2020 it was revealed that Glentauchers would be switching to biofuel with the goal of attaining carbon neutrality.

Official bottlings of Glentauchers were practically non-existent until a few years ago but are now released under the Ballantine’s Series label. Gordon & MacPhail have been the de facto official bottlers for Glentauchers for decades, with licensed bottlings appearing in the Distillery Labels range and cask strength vintage editions in the Connoisseurs Choice and Private Collection series.

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.