The Private Collection series from Gordon & MacPhail is a range of prestige single cask and small batch whiskies from one of Scotland’s oldest and most decorated independent bottlers.
Now in their 130th year, Gordon & MacPhail was founded in 1895 by James Gordon and John Alexander MacPhail. In 1998, G&M achieved a life-long ambition of opening and running their own distillery, Benromach - after it had been previously mothballed in 1983.
Bottlings for the range are personally selected by members of the Urquhart family, who have now owned and overseen the business through four generations of their rich family history. Private Collection whiskies are predominantly long‐aged single malts from celebrated, little‐known or closed distilleries.
The Private Collection first appeared on shelves, as very limited releases, in the early 1990's. The inaugural bottling, filled in January 1993, was a quite brilliant Mortlach 1942 50yo, one of just 24 bottles that were yielded from single refill sherry butt number 873. We are lucky enough to have one of these rare gems in our stock holding here.
Since its inception, the series has been a platform for the company to showcase their oldest and most precious stocks. They now regularly release whiskies that have aged for longer than fifty years in the cask, such as the Clynelish 1972 50yo, Glen Grant 1965 54yo and Longmorn 1970 51yo. At the time of writing, the oldest Private Collection bottling to date is the Glen Grant 1948 74yo that was bottled in December 2022, in preparation for the Coronation of King Charles III in 2023.
The series has seen a number of cosmetic and rebranding changes throughout its lifespan, with the most recent coming in 2018, as it introduced stunning decanters and heavy duty, oak presentation boxes to compliment the spectacular liquids held inside. In more recent years, we have also seen special releases, alongside the aforementioned KCIII Coronation, such as The Queen's Platinum Jubilee and The Recollection Series, where we were introduced to masterpieces such as the Caperdonich 1979 43yo, Lochside 1981 41yo and St. Magdalene 1982 40yo.
A stunning range that continues to break barriers with its long-aged releases from celebrated, long-lost and timeless distilleries. Long may it continue. Click here to view our full range from the Private Collection archives.