Scotland, Speyside. Distillery operational. Owners: Chivas Brothers Ltd, Pernod Ricard

Chivas Brothers' flagship malt, The Glenlivet was widely introduced to the international scene and became one of the world's most popular Scottish malts in the early 1950s. Its owners completed something of a Herculean task, releasing Glenlivet in a number of different age expressions in the 1960s, including a 12, 15, 18 and 21 year old. Then, in the 1970s, it released superb vintage versions distilled 1959 and 1961, alongside the famous 12 year old, before beginning the new millennium with an outstanding range in the style of the day, The Glenlivet Cellar Collection. In terms of independent bottlings, it was under the colourful label “Glenlivet Whisky, George & JG Smith”, which paid tribute to the distillery's founder (also a colourful figure in the whisky industry in the 19th century), that bottlers released the malt, including Gordon & MacPhail who once again stood out with remarkable editions heavily influenced by sherry.

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.