Gordon & MacPhail, Scotland's Oldest Independent Bottler, Will Exit the Business to Focus On Its Own Distilleries

Gordon & MacPhail, the scotch whisky industry’s longest-operating independent bottler, will no longer participate in that business, the company announced this morning. G&M will halt new cask fillings starting in 2024 to focus on its own distilleries, Benromach and The Cairn. The company’s existing whisky stocks for independent bottlings will be depleted over the coming decades as it focuses on building its own single malt brands as part of a long–term growth strategy

Gordon & MacPhail has been in business for 128 years and has filled casks at over 100 different scotch whisky distilleries, helping to pioneer the popularity of single malt scotch whisky. The Elgin-based company, run for generations by the Urquhart family, became a distiller itself when it bought the shuttered Speyside distillery Benromach in 1993 and restarted production there in 1998. It also owns The Cairn Distillery in Speyside, which opened in 2022, and will debut with a 12 year old single malt in 2034. The distillery’s completion was the catalyst for this change of direction.

“It’s a big decision for us, but the impact is a generation away,” outgoing managing director Ewen Mackintosh told Whisky Advocate. “Independent bottling has changed. When I started with the business 30 years ago, independent bottlers offered whiskies that weren’t available from the distillery owner, so we provided that service.”

Nowadays, whisky lovers can choose from numerous independent bottlings and each distillery’s own range of scotches, making it much harder for Gordon & MacPhail to find the space to release unique offerings that they’ve filled and matured from the beginning. Moreover, supplies have tightened amid the whisky boom. A number of other independent bottlers, such as Hunter Laing, Adelphi, Douglas Laing, and Elixir Distillers, have followed Gordon & MacPhail’s lead over the past 15 years and made the jump to become distillery owners.

What does this all mean for whisky lovers? Initially, nothing will change. “By saying we’re going to stop the fillings, every time we release a cask from the stock in the warehouse, that’s one less,” said Mackintosh. He noted that it will take many, many years for their warehouse inventories to wind down. “The clock is now ticking on the independent bottling side of the business, but it will still be important for decades to come,” he added.