The latest single malt to emerge from the Gordon & MacPhail warehouse has been revealed as the Gordon & MacPhail Mr George Legacy 1957 from Glen Grant Distillery.
The second expression honours Mr George Urquhart, who helped bring single malt whisky to the world, and is the second expression to be released as part of the whisky creator’s annual Legacy series.
It was laid down 64 years ago while ‘Mr George’, as he was known to those who knew him best, was at the helm of the family business. Only 298 bottles of this single cask whisky are available, highlighting the scarcity of this rarely seen vintage from Speyside’s Glen Grant Distillery.
Distilled on Thursday 10th October 1957 and spending its entire maturation in cask no. 3483, a first-fill Sherry butt, the second edition of the Legacy Series was bottled on Tuesday 9thNovember 2021 at a cask strength of 56.1% ABV.
Stuart Urquhart, grandson of Mr George and Gordon & MacPhail’s Operations Director, said: “In some industry quarters my grandfather was fondly thought of as slightly eccentric due to his relentless focus on maturation, painstakingly selecting the right cask to match with each particular spirit. He was intrigued to know how long the whisky might take to reach its peak and would have known he might not be around when that moment came. That is his legacy to our family and to whisky drinkers who love the rich complexity of the ultra-aged single malts he laid down decades ago.
“The latest release in the Legacy series comes from Glen Grant distillery, for which my grandfather had a particular affinity. Local to us in Speyside, Glen Grant was the first distillery to use a purifier in distillation which resulted in a lighter spirit. Back in the 1950s, the spirit would have been slightly smoky due to floor maltings and a small level of peat being used – which is a style rarely seen in today’s modern Speyside whiskies – giving this whisky a charred oakiness that is perfectly balanced by long-term maturation in a Sherry cask made of American oak.”