Gordon & MacPhail are one of the oldest and most important bottlers of single malt whisky in Scotland, and therefore the world. James Gordon and John MacPhail founded their grocery and whisky business on South Street in Elgin in 1895 and, as well as blending their own proprietary whisky brands, they were soon retailing single malt whiskies from various distilleries under license.
Of the two founders, John MacPhail took charge of the grocery business while James Gordon and his teenage protégé John Urquhart, who had joined the company in its first year of trading, developed the whisky side of the firm, buying and selling bulk single malt whisky wholesale and creating blends for the retail business.
James Gordon bought shares in several distilleries, including Strathisla, Glen Grant and Longmorn, and quickly introduced the pioneering practice of sending distilleries the grocery's empty wine and whisky casks to be filled with new make spirit and returned to mature in the company's Elgin warehouses.
In 1915, John Urquhart found himself in charge of the Gordon & MacPhail company at the tender age of 35, after his mentor James Gordon passed away unexpectedly just a fortnight after John MacPhail had retired. Urquhart eventually came into full possession of Gordon & MacPhail and successive generations of his family have owned the company ever since.
In the 1950s, Gordon & MacPhail were the first independent whisky bottlers to offer higher strength (100 proof) bottlings on a regular basis, while in 1968, under the management of John Urquhart's son, the legendary 'Mr. George' Urquhart, G&M introduced one of the first branded independent bottling ranges: the now-iconic Connoisseur’s Choice series, which is still thriving to this day.
Around the same period, G&M developed an important connection with Glen Grant and the Milanese importer Armando Giovinetti, helping to grow the market for single malt whisky in Italy. Gordon & MacPhail ended up collaborating with several other Italian importers in the 1970s and 1980s including Donini, Sestante and Nadi Fiori's Intertrade and Hi Spirits, with each new relationship producing iconic bottlings that remain in incredibly high demand.
Later independent bottling ranges from G&M included the CASK series, the Gordon & MacPhail Private Collection, the Old & Rare series and the Speymalt range, which quickly evolved into a remarkable showcase for the company's astonishing collection of casks of vintage Macallan single malt whisky.
Thanks to some strange magic of the Elgin warehouses, Gordon & MacPhail have bottled most of the oldest whiskies ever released, including the first ever 70-year-old single malt whisky: a 1938 Mortlach released in 2010. Later groundbreaking firsts for the company include an 80-year-old Glenlivet 1940 released in 2020 as part of their extraordinary G&M Generations series, and an 85-year-old Glenlivet 1940 in 2025.
In 2023, whisky fans were dismayed when Gordon & MacPhail announced that from 2024 onwards they would no longer be buying new make spirit from other distillers, signalling the beginning of the end of their operations as independent bottlers. Nevertheless, the Elgin warehouses already hold thousands of maturing casks and the company will doubtless take several decades to deplete their existing stock.
Instead, Gordon & MacPhail have taken the decision to focus on their own distilleries: Benromach, which was purchased from Diageo forerunner United Distillers in 1993 and recommenced distillation in 1998; and the company's new Speyside distillery The Cairn, which began distillation in 2022. Remaining true to the company's unrivalled reputation for long-aged whiskies, the first new single malt whiskies from The Cairn are not expected before the mid-2030s. In the meantime, in a further nod to their roots, the distillery is releasing a range of top class blended malts.
Connoisseurs Choice
Gordon & MacPhail's Connoisseur’s Choice is one of the oldest and most iconic ranges of independent whisky bottlings in the world. The Connoisseurs Choice series was first created by G&M director 'Mr. George' Urquhart in 1968 to sit alongside the company’s licensed distillery bottlings, releasing small batches of single malt from a greater variety of distilleries.
The first Connoisseurs Choice releases featured only a handful of distilleries, but the range had grown to include around 20 different distilleries by the late 1970s, when the livery changed from the original black and red label to a new brown and beige presentation. By 1987, when the famous Connoisseurs Choice Map Labels had been introduced, the Connoisseurs Choice range had become an essential part of Gordon & MacPhail’s business.
Historically, the Connoisseurs Choice bottlings generally appeared as small batch editions (often only two or three casks) with the strength usually at 40% or 43%. That changed in 2008, when the bottling strength was standardised to 46% and the company abandoned the practice of colouring and chill filtering their whiskies - a very welcome step with whisky fans, if perhaps slightly overdue.
Gordon & MacPhail upped their game further in 2018 with the introduction of the Connoisseurs Choice Cask Strength series, an acclaimed range of mostly single cask single malts at natural cask strength.
Gordon & MacPhail Rare Old
Gordon & MacPhail's Rare Old range was first launched in 1998 as a way to highlight very special whiskies from the company archives and the series quickly came to be the home for long-aged whiskies from closed distilleries. Early Rare Old releases came from working distilleries such as Glenlossie and Highland Park, but the majority of the subsequent bottlings came from lost distilleries including Glenugie, Convalmore, Glenlochy, Coleburn, Banff, Glenury, St Magdalene and Rosebank.
Initially, each batch of Old & Rare releases was bottled at 40% or 43%, much like the Connoisseur’s Choice range. However, as trends changed and appetites for higher strengths grew, the series moved towards 46% or natural cask strength. Some of the greatest examples from the Rare Old range included gems from closed distilleries such as the 1966 Banff and beautiful 1970s vintages from Glenlochy and Convalmore, although pretty much everything in this series was of exemplary quality and utterly delicious. The last Rare Old bottlings were released in 2016.
Gordon & MacPhail Private Collection
The Private Collection from Gordon & MacPhail is a small but extremely high-quality range of whiskies first launched in the late 1990s. G&M's Private Collection bottlings showcase small batch and single cask malt whiskies of great rarity, age and immense quality and are hand-selected by the Urquharts themselves.
Most of the Private Collection whiskies are bottled either at 45% or at natural cask strength without filtration or colouring, although a few of the early examples were also bottled at 40%. By its nature, almost every bottling in this series is a ‘highlight’ so it is hard to select just a few. But some particularly emblematic examples have included 1940s vintages from Mortlach and Glenlivet, 1950s vintages from Strathisla and Glen Grant, 1960s vintages from Caol Ila and Clynelish... you get the idea.
It's probably fair to say that Gordon & MacPhail have been responsible for more of the greatest whiskies ever released than any other whisky company. Today, Gordon & MacPhail still regularly release ultra-premium prestige whiskies of unparalleled age and quality from their archives, while at the other end of the scale their Discovery Range and ongoing Distillery Labels series provide beginner whisky fans with nigh-unbeatable value for money and an opportunity to try a wide variety of whiskies from distilleries around Scotland.