Glenlivet 1943 Gordon and MacPhail 70 Year Old Private Collection
This is a spectacularly well-aged Glenlivet, distilled at the height of the second world war, in 1943. The war had halted the production of whisky at most of Scotland's distilleries, but this was thankfully not the case at Glenlivet. At 70 years old, this is an already exceptionally rare whisky, before you factor in the limited supply of whisky being produced at the time, and the even smaller number of those doing so.
The date was the 14th of January, and this whisky was filled into first fill sherry hogshead #121. It was then squirrelled away in the Glenlivet warehouses for over 24 years before being purchased by Gordon & MacPhail, and moved to their premises in Elgin. It was then unmoved until June 2013, when it provided just 42 decanters, at a cask strength of 49.1%.
The doors of the box close with an asymmetrical join that evokes the meander of the River Spey, and the decanter itself is hand-blown, with gold engravings of the land contours around the Glenlivet distillery, set into the base. This is a spectacular presentation for a spectacular whisky.
14 of 42.
