Inverleven 1991 Gordon & MacPhail (Brown)

The Inverleven distillery was part of the Dumbarton complex near Glasgow, in the Lowlands of Scotland, built by Hiram Walker in 1938 to produce grain whisky (Dumbarton) and malt whisky (Inverleven) for its flasghip blend Ballantine’‘s, of George Ballantine & Sons, which it bought in 1936. The distillery was equipped with two copper pot stills and a Lomond still installed in 1956—which was classed as a separate distillery named Lomond. Lomond ceased production in 1985 and Inverleven followed suit in 1991, before the entire Dumbarton complex was closed in 2002 and then demolished. Primarily used for blends, Inverleven is a rare whisky found only in a few independent bottlings and in the Deoch an Doras range from Chivas Brothers. The Lomond still was moved to Islay to the Bruichladdich distillery in 2005, where it is now used to the produced the gin The Botanist. The other stills live on in Mark Reynier’‘s new Waterford distillery in Ireland.

A small batch from the Inverleven distillery, distilled in 1991 and bottled by independent bottler Gordon & MacPhail. Gordon & MacPhail was founded in Elgin in 1895 by James Gordon and John Alexander MacPhail. As was often the case at the time, the business started out as a delicatessen and wine merchant. In 1915, John Alexander MacPhail retired and a new partner joined the business, John Urquhart. He was joined by his son George in 1933, a few years after James Gordon died in a car crash. Gordon & MacPhail works with many of Speyside’s leading distilleries, from whom it has accumulated considerable stocks. It is also licensed to bottle whiskies for many of them, including Glen Grant, Linkwood, Mortlach, Macallan and Glenlivet. The business really took off in the 1970s, acquiring distributors in a huge range of countries and selling casks to several Italian bottlers in selections that would become legends in their own right. Gordon & MacPhail is still run by the Urquhart family today, from the same building, and is one of the most iconic bottlers in the industry, with incredible stocks of sometimes very old and rare whiskies. The company is in complete control of the entire maturation process. Gordon & MacPhail has also owned the Benromach distillery since 1993.