Distillery Label (Gordon and MacPhail)

'Distillery Labels' is a range of bottlings from Gordon & MacPhail that encapsulate the relationships built up over 100 years between the business and distillery owners, who entrust their own new make spirit with G&M to carefully mature in their own hand-picked casks to bottle at their very best. 'Retro' labels are used to distinguish G&M releases from official bottlings while still denoting the close ties they enjoy.

Just off the A96, halfway between Aberdeen and Elgin sits the Ardmore Distillery - technically still in the Highland region. It was built in 1898 by Adam Teacher, the son of Glasgow blender William Teacher - the distillery was built specifically top produce whisky for blending, and until relatively recently was one of the only Highland distilleries to use peated barley. It's more of a woodsmoke flavour profile however, which was helpful to provide depth and complexity for blending. Sold to Beam in 2006, it wasn't available as an official bottling single malt due to the need for the vast majority of stock to be used in Teachers, but Ardmore is now a Single Malt brand in it's own right - although to the brutally honest the rebranding that took palce a few years ago saw a marked downturn in quality and value, sadly.

Ardmore was also the 2nd to last distillery in Scotland to move from a coal fire under the still in 2001, which they maintained added to the character but made it difficult to control temperature consistency.

This particular bottling was distilled in 1987, matured in refill Sherry casks by G&M from day one, and bottled in 2003. The months are not known, so we're looking at either a 15- or 16yo. The seal is intact, the fill level is high and the labels are in pristine condition.