After last week’s rum—a Foursquare 12 bottled for Total Wine—let’s get back to whisky and back to opening long-held bottles in my stash. This week’s newly opened bottle is an older Longmorn bottled by Gordon & MacPhail. As you may know/remember, in 2011, G&M bottled a quintet of old Longmorns for van Wees. I’ve reviewed all of them (the 1964, the 1966, the 1968, the 1969 and the1972). Those were all very good, most were excellent, one was probably the best whisky I’ve ever had. In addition to being vintage releases, those were also all single sherry casks and all bottled at cask strength. Today’s Longmorn is also sherry-matured but a little younger than all of those, being “only” 30 years old. More importantly, it’s not a vintage release or a single cask or at a very high strength. Indeed, it was bottled at the bare minimum legal strength of 40% abv and was doubtless a vatting of several casks. It was released sometime in the late 2000s, maybe in 2009. I have a feeling that G&M had a lot of outstanding casks of 1970s Longmorn in their warehouse and that while some made it out as single casks, many others may have been vatted and diluted—or perhaps vatted with casks that had slipped below 40% to rescue them for bottling—and released with very little fanfare. I certainly purchased it with very little fanfare in 2013 (for all of $136 from Binny’s). It’s hard to imagine either a 40% vatted release of a 30 yo sherry cask malt today or one that would not cost several times as much. Anyway, I opened this bottle a couple of days ago. The first pour felt a little underpowered at first but then it came along really nicely. Let’s see what it’s like now.

Longmorn 30 (40%; Gordon & MacPhail; from my own bottle)

Nose: Mild but lovely sherried notes that emphasize fruit (apricot, dried orange peel) and polished oak. Some dried leaves and copper coins emerge as it sits. Not much change after that. With a few drops of water the metallic note expands and the fruit subsides a bit.

Palate: Comes in as promised by the nose except a little sweeter (something floral in there). Surprising depth of flavour at 40% and the texture is not half-bad either. Dried leaves here too with time and ( the oak gets a little bitter. Some mild licks of smoke as well—or at least something setting off a smoke receptor on my tongue. As often happens with older malts at low strengths, water actually seems to improve the texture; unlike on the nose, it also emphasizes the fruit.

Finish: Medium. The fruit and polished oak fade out slowly; caramelized plantains and a touch of ripe mango at the end. Longer with water and the fruit trumps the oak here as well.

Comments: It should never be surprising that an old Longmorn from the 1970s or earlier is very good but I am surprised anyway at how good this is at 40%. Pretty sure a bunch of siblings of those killer casks that came out at cask strength a few years later must have gone into this vatting. Still, while the depth of aroma and flavour is greater than I would have expected at the abv, it is missing some oomph and development and that holds it back from the next tier for now. I’ll be interested to see how it develops with air in the bottle.

Rating: 88 points.