Gordon & MacPhail have something of form when it comes to uber-premium very well aged single malts. We've seen Mortlach 70 Year Old released in 2010, Glenlivet 70 Year Old released in 2011 and for 2012 and to concide with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee year a Glen Grant 60 Year Old.

Priced £7,999 (£6,666 ex VAT) each and with only 85 decanters available, very few will find themselves savouring this remarkable Scotch distilled in 1952 at the Speyside Glen Grant Distillery.

Gordon & MacPhail instructed that cask #465 a first fill sherry hogshead, be filled at Glen Grant Distillery on 2nd February 1952. The cask matured at the distillery until 26th March 1968 whereby it was transferred to Gordon & Macphail's bonded warehouse in Elgin. On 2nd February 2012 - sixty years to the day, the contents of the cask were filled into 85 crystal decanters.

Nose: Wonderfully sweet aroma filling the room with tropical fruits (think opal fruit candy). Honey blossom, banana skin, sherbet and cinnamon sticks leading to a thick black cherry jam. Marvellous!

Palate: The fruity nose is immediate on the palate, absolutely salivating! The balance of stewed cherries, fresh cut tropical fruits, spices even including clove buds with the expected dried fruits and worn leather from the sherry wood is out of this world!

Overall: Quite possibly the finest single malt Scotch this Blog has even laid our hands on. A once in a life time dram.

Order Glen Grant 60 Year Old Jubilee decanter number 8 from The Whisky Barrel priced £7,999 (£6,666 ex VAT).

Having sat silent for over twenty years, Glenglassaugh Distillery in the far north-east of Scotland began distilling again in December 2008. After 30-months maturing in refill ex-bourbon barrels and a final 6-months maturing in fresh oloroso sherry butts the first single malt Scotch whisky under the new ownership from this famous old distillery, established in 1875, is ready for your appreciation.

The Whisky Barrel Blog team have kept a keen eye on Glenglassaugh Distillery. It's one of our very favourite Highland malts so we are delighted to report that this three year old core release aptly named Glenglassaugh Revival has been worth the wait, indeed we reckon it's the tastiest young Scotch on the market today.

Don't hang around, there are only cira 10,000 bottles worldwide with many being snapped up by eager collectors.

We recommend a teaspoon of water to really open this one up.

Nose: Most inviting! Banoffee pie, lots of toffee, very sweet, ash, sherry, orange peel, lemon zest, dried fruits, slightly spirity, buttery, liquorice and overall very clean. A feast of aromas, there is just so much going on! superb!

Palate: Starts very clean and warming, becoming very oily with lots of dried fruits, vanillas, citrus, leather boots, and burnt oak. The finish becomes dry with some ash and buckets of butterscotch and long lasting pineapple ending.

You can buy Glenglassaugh Revival 46% from The Whisky Barrel priced £36.99 (£30.82 ex VAT).

Having been mothballed since 1986, maturing stocks are something of a premium, notwithstanding, under the new ownership Glenglassaugh Distillery has treated us to some very well aged single malts since 2008. Let's have a look at two core releases, the 26 & 36 year old's.

Glenglassaugh 26 Year Old 1983 Vintage 46%

Nose: Very crisp, barley, banana, brown sugar, citrus and sweet spicy pear.

Palate: Sweet oatmeal, floral, barley sugars and slightly bitter with a soft oily pinch of sea salt. The warming finish is sweet with some background oak and leather.

Buy Glenglassaugh 26 Year Old from TheWhiskyBarrel priced £159.99 (£133.32 ex VAT).

Glenglassaugh 36 Year Old 43%

Nose: Sweet dried fruits - big on the raisins and orange peel. Cappuccino with demerara sugar and a side of ripe green pear.

Palate: Explosion of dried fruits and warming spices, quite hot and peppery with a faint salty note leading to Dundee marmalade and slices of Battenberg cake. The finish is long and balanced with stem ginger, pepper, molasses and pear drops. A fine dram indeed.

Order Glenglassaugh 36 Year Old from TheWhiskyBarrel priced £397.99 (£331.66 ex VAT).

The Manager's Legacy released 2010-11 is a series of four bottlings to celebrate the achievements of Glenglassaugh Distillery manager's during the previous working period 1964-86. Each single cask expression bears the distillery manager's name.

Glenglassaugh 42 Year Old Bert Forsyth 1968 Vintage £419.99 (£349.99 ex VAT).

Glenglassaugh 43 Year Old Bert Forsyth 1967 Vintage £429.99 (£358.52 ex VAT).

The Chosen Few series first released in 2011 is a range of single casks each selected by the current members of the distillery team at Glenglassaugh.

Glenglassaugh 35 Year Old Ronnie Routledge 1976 Vintage £294.99 (£245.82 ex VAT).

The first new spirit ran off the stills on the 4th of December 2008 and the first cask was filled the 16th December. That first cask was a refill butt and was set to rest for precisely 2 years before being split into two casks: a first-fill ex-Pedro Ximenez sherry hogshead and a first-fill ex-Palo Cortado sherry hogshead. These matured for a further 9 months until being reunited in their original sherry butt and left to marry for 3 months. Emptied and bottled on the 16th December 2011 the first historic whisky from the first cask filled at the re-furbished Glenglassaugh at the precise age of 3 years yielding 650 bottles.

Order Glenglassaugh First Cask 2008 Vintage £129.99 (£108.32 ex VAT) from The Whisky Barrel.

The Queen’s Jubilee celebrations have already begun. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth is taking a leisurely tour around a number of locations in Scotland & the United Kingdom to attend small celebrations with the public in advance of the commemoration on 2nd June 1952 of her 60 years as British Monarch and Head of the Commonwealth. The summer months are set to be the pinnacle of this Jubilee Year with a number of celebrations being organised, not least the Diamond Jubilee Concert to be held in front of Buckingham Palace on Monday 4th June this year - we will ignore the discrepancy in dates as it is a great excuse for a public holiday!  

The Queen may reside in London but her connections with Scotland are strong and lasting. With a room awaiting at the Royals’ Scottish residence at Balmoral Castle among beautiful Highland settings, she is also not too far away from some ‘aqua vitae’. Just along the road from her Scottish abode is Royal Lochnagar, a distillery that was established back in 1825 near the banks of the River Dee just outside the town of Ballater. The distillery was granted royal status following a visit by Queen Victoria and her family in 1848. Although we are unsure as to whether the current Queen is a big fan of Scotch Malt we like to think that she is at least privy to a wee dram when holidaying north of the border. We're delighted to see one cannie independent bottler has siezed the oppotunity to bottle a 9 year old single malt Royal Loachnagar Queen's Diamond Jubilee Scotch £39.99 (£33.32 ex VAT).

And the relationship between the royal family and Scotch has long been established within the industry. Many royal occasions have often been marked by special Scotch whiskies over the years. For example Macallan Distillery produced a special Macallan Royal Wedding bottle to mark the marriage of Prince William and the now Duchess of Cambridge in 2011, £749.99 (£624.99 ex VAT).

Similarly a number of special bottlings have emerged over the past few months, dedicated to the Queen’s Jubilee year. Not least, a somewhat special 1952 vintage by Gordon & MacPhail; Glen Grant 60 Year Old Diamond Jubilee at £7,999 (£6,666.66 ex VAT). This unique and quite remarkable Glen Cairn Crystal decanter packed in a hand made Scottish Elm box which can only be opened with two solid silver keys and we have it in stock here at TheWhiskyBarrel.com.

However, not to be outdone, we here at The Whisky Barrel also feel that commemorating important events such as this are made all the better with a nice wee dram of Scotch Whisky without extending the mortgage. So to mark this occasion we have produced a special and exclusive Jubilee Malt bottling that is a bit less dependent on how many £100 notes you can fit in your Sporran. This 21 year old single malt scotch distilled on Islay at the Bunnahabhain Distillery and bottled exclusively for TheWhiskyBarrel.com, not only provides an excellent dram to accompany the celebrations it is proving to be just as elusive. With only 90 bottles available these promptly sold out within hours. This has somewhat caught The Whisky Barrel Blog team out – our blog typing fingers were not able to match the speed at which the bottles were going out the door. However, we are glad to announce that due to the demand for the bottle, drum-roll please, we present a sister cask Jubilee Malt Extra Regal 21 Year Old £64.99 (54.16 ex VAT) distilled at Bunnahabhain Distillery and matured in a fresh sherry butt for twenty-one years and featuring a rather splendid Crown Jewel on the label. It’s no coincidence the Isle of Islay is also known as the Queen of the Hebrides.

True to form, The English Whisky distillery (formally St George's Distillery) follows on from their 2011 Royal Wedding William & Kate with a new expression English Whisky Diamond Jubilee 2012 £59.99 (£49.99 ex VAT) distilled using malted barley grown on the Sandringham Estate, the country retreat of Her Majesty The Queen.