Glen Mhor 45 Years Old 1966 Cask #3690 (G&M)

This Glen Mhor was bottled by the Elgin house Gordon and MacPhail, a 45 year old, distilled in 1966, from cask 3690, bottled at 52.1%, one of 133 bottles. Glen Mhor was a Highland malt distillery, demolished to make way for a supermarket. Its water came from Loch Ness, drawn down the River Ness to the distillery.

The spirit was distilled in a single pair and a half of stills and cooled in worm tubs, for a fruity, oily spirit with real body. A sherry butt held it, the wood lending raisin and walnut over the rich body. Ethereal and fragile, decades draw the oily malt to a waxy, honeyed delicacy of sotolon, dried fruit and old oak. Years in oak round the spirit, the orchard fruit deepening to dried fruit and beeswax. Refill oak lets the full, oily Glen Mhor character lead the way. It installed Saladin box maltings in 1954, malting its own barley on site. Closed in 1983 and demolished in 1986, its profile is fixed for good.

At a hearty 52.1% it carries real weight. A rich, oily orchard fruit, with dried fruit, fig and walnut from the cask. It is rich and oily, the full spirit shining through. Apple, wax and a soft oak see out the finish. This is a single malt from one of the lost Inverness distilleries.