Glen Mhor 12 Years Old Rare Old Highland Malt (G&M)

This Glen Mhor was bottled by the Elgin house Gordon and MacPhail, a 12 year old, bottled at 40%. Glen Mhor was a Highland malt distillery, demolished to make way for a supermarket. It passed to the Distillers Company in 1972 and was closed in 1983.

This was run through the stills and old worm tubs on Loch Ness water, for a fruity, oily spirit with real body. Maturation came in ex-Bourbon wood, the oak quiet behind the oily spirit. Integration folds eugenol (clove) and vanillin (vanilla) into the malt, the body fuller and oilier. Refill oak lets the full, oily Glen Mhor character lead the way. The writer Neil Gunn, an Inverness exciseman, famously praised Glen Mhor above all. A 28 year old appeared in Diageo's Rare Malts collection, a glimpse of the lost distillery. The slow loss of the angel's share concentrates the oily, waxy core over the decades. The worm tubs gave a full, oily spirit, less copper contact leaving real weight in the make. Closed in 1983 and demolished in 1986, its profile is fixed for good.

Bottled at 40%, it is rounded. Dried fruit, wax and an oily weight, with a soft vanilla from the oak. The texture is full and oily, the fruit lifted by vanilla. The finish runs oily, full and warming. This is a rich, waxy single malt from silent Inverness.