Spirit Of The Week: Gordon & MacPhail 85 Years Old Single Malt 

Purveyors of some of the world’s finest scotch release the oldest aged whisky ever with a $170,000 price tag.

Luxury grocer Gordon & MacPhail first opened shop in 1895 on the bustling streets of Elgin, Scotland, and soon started buying whisky from nearby distilleries. Sourced from over 100 distilleries spread across the Scottish landscape, they poured their new juice into ex-Sherry and ex-bourbon American oak and meticulously shepherded the aging process from there. But what set G&M apart from other merchants was an early employee—and soon to be owner—named George Urquhart, who was first to recognize the value of these single estate whiskies bottled and sold as ‘single malts,’ versus combining them in blends like nearly everyone else at the time. Because of this prescient epiphany, Urquhart has often been dubbed the Grandfather of Single Malt. 

Following this philosophy, G&M collected a coveted trove of treasured casks over the decades, allowing them to age in their own warehouses, judiciously releasing them to the world when ready. But shifts in G&M’s own business model caused an even stronger emphasis on these single malts. In the mid-2010s G&M narrowed its focus from wholesale whisky sales to its own house of brands, appointing Urquhart’s great-grandson Stephen Rankin to a newly created Director of Prestige role in October 2017. The move brought a family voice to the front of the portfolio, just as the family’s long view has always guided what goes into cask and bottle.

Recent G&M offerings include a Caol Ila single malt distilled in 1968, the oldest whisky ever sold from the historic Islay distillery. A 72-Year-Old Glen Grant distilled in 1948 sold at auction for $49,000. In 2021 they released ‘Generations 2021,’ at the time the oldest age-statement whisky ever bottled. 

For G&M’s latest, those extravagant age statements are stretched even further. Now Gordon & MacPhail 85 Years Old from Glenlivet Distillery overtakes their own Generations 2021 as the oldest age-statement whisky ever bottled. Fitting, as both casks were purchased the same day from the Glenlivet Distillery, with Rankin showing me over Zoom the literal receipts in a worn ledger: Cask No. 336.

“It’s 85 years in a wonderful cask that for it to get here, has taken amazing patience, incredible skill, judgment, and bravery,” Rankin shares with Maxim, describing the ‘Artistry In Oak’ concept the family envisioned to package this rarefied whisky. “At the same time, the family that’s handled this this entire life, it’s now four generations, from one to four that has done this. And so it’s that sense of growing older and wiser as we’ve done it.”

Filled at Glenlivet on February 3, 1940, the whisky was bottled on February 5, 2025 at 43.7% ABV, its “light mahogany” hue flashing into bright amber. The cask’s life predates even that: fashioned from American oak harvested around the 1840s, the wood likely began life as an acorn centuries earlier, matured into timber, then served years in Spain as a sherry vessel before traveling to the Elgin shop of Gordon & MacPhail. There, Urquhart emptied the sherry and filled the cask with new spirit, beginning a vigil that would last most of a century—a Speyside history drawn in liquid form. 

“I couldn’t believe how fresh it was,” Rankin says of when he first whiffed the octogenarian spirit. “Spring florals and apricot compote; ripe orchard pear; that scent of just-peeled orange. Then dusted cinnamon, autumnal plums, golden sultanas, vanilla and anise, an herbal green like blackcurrant bush—and, right at the edge, a whisper of sooty, industrial smoke that quickly recedes,” he emotes passionately. We were lucky enough to be allowed a thimble to sample along with Rankin, and can verify the wondrous Tolkien journey your palate will take slowly sipping this ancient juice over an hour. The pear and raisins are followed by leather, ripe plum and citrus, with a touch of cherry—the finish lingering long as fruit and herbs trade places with subtle smoke.

Of course with a liquid this rarefied, a commensurate packaging must follow. Here’s where the family’s ‘Artistry In Oak’ concept came into play: create a vessel worthy of a whisky that has survived, evolved, and improved over eighty-five years. G&M’s brief to celebrated American architect Jeanne Gang wasn’t really a request for gaudy ornament—it was a call for a structure that could celebrate a near century-old liquid, one guided under a single family’s care. 

Gang’s response is more kinetic sculpture than package: four bronze branches spiral upward to cradle a suspended glass capsule of amber spirit—an homage to the four Urquhart family branches that continue to own and steward G&M to this day. Mouth-blown glass meets cast bronze in a painstaking assembly by Scottish firm Galvin that consumes roughly 80 to 85 hours per decanter, each patina quietly distinct. The form looks alive because the story is: four generations plaited around a core of time and craft.

One hundred twenty-four decanters were made available globally last week on October 2, with a price tag of about $170,000 (£125,000) each. Meanwhile the 125th crosses a Christie’s auction block November 7–21, with the lot reading like a family archive: the signed decanter; a framed cask-end cut from No. 336; a Jeanne Gang sketch of the oak that inspired her branching form; and a private tasting led by Stephen and/or cousin Richard, both fourth-generation Urquharts. Charity is part of the architecture, too. After partnering with Trees for Life on the 80-year-old Generations 2021, G&M has chosen American Forests for this release—the nation’s oldest nonprofit devoted to restoring oak-dominant forests.

Follow our Deputy Editor on Instagram at @nickstecher and @boozeoftheday.