Tormore 1999 (bottled 2015) - Cask Strength Gordon & MacPhail (70cl, 57.8%) ***sold***
A 1999 vintage Tormore single malt matured in three first fill bourbon barrels (4737, 4739 and 4740) and bottled in 2015 by Gordon & MacPhail for their Cask Strength range.
Tormore is one of Speyside's most aesthetically pleasing distilleries, designed in 1959 by Sir Albert Richardson (then president of the Royal Academy). It was built by the Schenley company in order to provide malt for their Long John blends. Despite this, its single malt has been bottled by all of its owners over the years, including as part of the short-lived Caledonian Malts range from Allied Distillers, alongside Laphroaig and Glendronach. Despite this, distillery bottlings are still something of a rarity, and independent releases like this tend to be the most accessible.
Gordon & MacPhail are one of the largest and most recognisable whisky companies in the world. Although they began distilling at the newly refurbished Benromach distillery in 1998, for most of their history they were an independent bottler. Their labels are recognised by whisky lovers the world over, and their licensed bottlings from distillery's like Macallan and Talisker in the 1970s and 1980s, when the companies were not bottling themselves, are a huge part of the success of those distillers today.
The Cask Strength range, a more recent version of the Original 'Cask' series, which represented Gordon & MacPhail’s first foray into natural strength bottlings in order to keep up with the market trend in preference for these in the late 1980s.