Longmorn 29 Year Old 1973 Symposion International Single Sherry Butt #3965 Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky (2002) 70cl
1 of only 134 bottles produced from a single sherry butt.
The darkness is here in the form of this unicorn release. This is a 29 year old Longmorn bottled specifically for the Swedish market by Symposion International AB. It was distilled on 8.5.1973 and bottled on 27.11.2002 from a sherry butt that yielded 134 bottles.
A great example of an early direct heat distilled Longmorn from the early 1970s.
TASTING NOTES
Nose: varnish, sherry, cinnamon, leather, figs, toffee, dark candy sugar, old rum (Martinique rum maybe even?) and a little coffee.
Palate: A little mineral and dusty, with vanilla and a little burnt sugar.
Finish: Long and semi-dry, with a little licorice, coffee liqueur, vanilla, chocolate and a little hint of sulfur. With a few drops of water, more candy sugar appeared on the nose, along with some red berries. The taste became a little sweeter and at the same time a little ashy, strangely enough, with more pronounced vanilla in addition, while the finish got a little less sulfur, and it became drier and less mineral.
About Longmorn
Longmorn has quietly provided a sweet and deeply fruity component to a multiplicity of blends since its founding. Its ferments are long, the distillation takes place in eight thick-necked stills, giving a make which is weighty enough to age well in both ex-Sherry and ex-Bourbon
Longmorn has been available as a single malt since the launch of a 15-year-old in 1993, a bottling which sported a slightly fantastical label showing the distillery nestled in the midst of rugged peaks – it’s on the flatlands near Elgin.
This was replaced by an extravagantly packaged 16-year-old in 2007, but the needs of blenders have meant that, even with increased production, the vast bulk of Longmorn is ring-fenced, with a single-cask offering part of Chivas Brothers’ Cask Strength series. It is, thankfully, a regular sight on independent bottlers’ lists and, deservedly, has built up a cult following, particularly in Japan.
Longmorn was built by one of the 19th century’s most interesting whisky entrepreneurs, John Duff. He was born in Aberchirder, worked at GlenDronach, and after designing nearby Glenlossie in 1876, headed to South Africa to try and start a whisky industry there. He failed (as did most, until very recently) and headed to the US to try his hand there. Knocked back once more he returned home and, undeterred, built Longmorn in 1893. Five years after he built another plant next door – Benriach.
It was not an ideal time to build two new plants and in 1899 he was forced to sell to James Grant. Although Duff’s business was not sound, his whisky was and by the start of the 20th century Longmorn was a prize malt, used in a variety of blends including VAT 69 and Dewar’s. In 1920, the young Masataka Taketsuru, one of the fathers of Japanese whisky and founder of Nikka, spent a short period working in the distillery. The stills at Nikka’s two distilleries are said to be modelled on Longmorn’s.
In 1970, the Grant family and blender Hill Thompson (which had a long relationship with Longmorn) merged with The Glenlivet & Glen Grant Distilleries Ltd to create The Glenlivet Distilleries Ltd. This was bought by Seagram in 1977 and (minus Glen Grant) is now part of Chivas Brothers.
43% ABV
70cl
