Richard Urquhart explains his family’s unique way of bottling whisky at Gordon and MacPhail.
Richard Urquhart’s family has beenan independent bottler of Speyside single malt whisky for generations at Gordon and MacPhail in Elgin. The young and energenic export manager was in Toronto recently and GFR caught up with him before he led a single malt seminar at the Summerhill LCBO. I filmed the video below in the store’s parking lot, so I apologize for the occasional car noise or the rattling sound of a shopping cart rolling on the pavement.
Gordon and MacPhail, as Urquhart explains, is an interesting business: they send casks to single malt producers around the Northeastern Scottish region of Speyside. They started doing this in the 19th century as a shop to sell to their customers. Many of the distillers who sell their spirit to Gordon and MacPhail are very well known labels in their own right, while some are otherwise obscure since they make single malt principally to be blended by other large labels. As a result, Gordon and MacPhail has a terrifically large product offering: well over 300 single malts for sale from all over Speyside, and spanning decades of age.
Gordon and Macphail’s knowledge of Speyside single malt whisky has served them well with the other Urquhart family project, the Benromach distillery, which they bought to make their own whisky about 20 years ago. By consulting Gordon and MacPhail’s extensive Liquid Library the distillers at Benromach have created what they believe to be a faithful recreation of traditional Speyside single malt whisky, closer to the styles that would have been made 50 or more years ago.
Richard Urquart discusses this and more in the video below.
Can’t see the video? Please click here.
Malcolm Jolley is a founding editor of Good Food Revolution and Executive Director of Good Food Media, the company that publishes it. Follow him on Twitter or Facebook.
