Schottland, Speyside. Aktive Destillerie. Eigentümer: Chivas Brothers Ltd, Pernod Ricard. Der Vorzeigewhisky von Chivas Brothers, Glenlivet, wurde in den frühen 1950er Jahren international eingeführt und zu einem der beliebtesten schottischen Whiskys der Welt. Glenlivet wird seit den 1960er-Jahren als 12, 15, 18 und 21 Jahre gereifte Version angeboten. In den späten 1970er Jahren waren neben dem berühmten 12-Jährigen auch hervorragende Jahrgangsversionen (1959 oder 1961) auf dem Markt zu finden. Zum neuen Jahrtausend wurde die The Glenlivet Cellar Collection neu aufgelegt. Unabhängige Abfüller bieten Glenlivet mit dem mehrfarbigen Etikett "Glenlivet Whisky, George & JG Smith" an. Dies ist eine Hommage an den Gründer der Brennerei, eine schillernde Figur der Whiskyindustrie des 19. Jahrhunderts. Zu ihnen gehört auch Gordon & MacPhail, die sich auch hier durch eine stark vom Sherry geprägte Version auszeichnen.

This 50 year old Glenlivet was distilled in 1948 and bottled by independent bottler Gordon & MacPhail, a company originally 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 grocery 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 worked with many of Speyside’s leading distilleries, from whom it accumulated considerable stocks. It was 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. The Book of Kells range—named after the famous medieval manuscript kept in the library of Trinity College Dublin—features some of Gordon & MacPhail’s most prestigious bottlings.