Mortlach is a legendary Speyside distillery for whisky lovers. It is one of the great malts that people usually discover early on. Never widely available in official forms, it has found many fans thanks largely to Gordon & MacPhail, who have owned and bottled exceptional quality private stocks of Mortlach's single malt whisky since before the second world war.

Mortlach's distillation process is complex and yields three distinct and separate new make distillates which are mixed together before being filled into casks. There is an eternal oiliness about Mortlach's spirit, it has always been a robust and meaty distillate and this staggered distillation process and old school worm tub cooling is centrally responsible for these characteristics.

These days there are many bottlings of Mortlach's 1980s and 1990s vintages. These are often quite biscuity and occasionally dirty whiskies, a trait that is often accentuated by sherry casks, to either the delight or disgust of the drinker. Mortlach has a naturally gunpowdery, dirty quality about it that can be very beautiful but an equally dirty sherry cask can send it into overkill territories. However, a clean top-notch sherry cask is the perfect vessel for Mortlach's oily muscularity.