Scotland, Speyside. Distillery operational. Owner: Chivas Brothers, Pernod Ricard

A blender's malt par excellence, Longmorn is considered a “Top Malt” in the Scotch whisky industry. This title, shared by just a dozen of the hundreds of distilleries spread across the Highlands including Macallan, enabled it to survive the difficulties of the 20th century in the shadow of Chivas Regal. For a long time limited to just two expressions, Longmorn 10 Year Old and Longmorn 15 Year Old, it would not be until the 21st century (2004) that its owners recognized its right to exist on the international scene as a single malt and equipped it with its own special bottlings. In the meantime, independent bottlers took to the malt. Making sherry-cask maturation its trademark, Gordon & MacPhail gave it an identity revered by and renowned amongst enthusiasts and collectors.

A Longmorn 27 year old distilled in 1985 and bottled in 2013, matured in refill bourbon hogsheads. The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) was founded in Edinburgh in 1983 by a group of friends with a particular passion for whisky. The club selects casks whose bottles are then only available to members. The name of the distillery is not mentioned on the label, but each distillery is given a number as the malt is bottled. The first cask selected by the SMWS, for example, was Glenfarclas, and it therefore uses the number 1. The second number refers to the number of bottlings from each distillery. The club was sold to Glenmorangie in 2004 and then to a group of investors in 2016. A limited edition of 173 bottles.