A 1cl sample bottle of Glenlivet 1943. This was distilled on 14 January 1943, matured in a first fill sherry hogshead and bottled at cask strength on 11 June 2013 by Gordon & MacPhail as part of the Private Collection series.
This was bottled from cask number 121.
George Smith had been a distiller in the glen of the river Livet prior to the Excise Act of 1823 but in 1824 he became the first distiller to obtain a licence to distil.
His whisky's popularity grew quickly, due in part to agent Andrew Usher, who drove sales and created Usher's Old Vatted Glenlivet, one of the first blended whisky brands.
In 1858, George Smith and his son John Gordon built the Glenlivet distillery at Minmore Farm, where it remains to this day.
So many other distillers in and around the Glenlivet region used the name Glenlivet for their whiskies that in 1884 Smith's grandson, George Smith Grant, went to court to claim exclusive right to use the name. It was eventually agreed that Smith had the right to call his whisky Glenlivet and other distilleries could use the Glenlivet as a suffix (eg Macallan Glenlivet, Longmorn Glenlivet, Strathisla Glenlivet, Aberlour Glenlivet, Dufftown Glenlivet, Glenfarclas Glenlivet etc). The practise continued for over 100 years.
After World War II, single malt bottlings became more widespread, but even by the 1970s, 95% of the distillery's output was still used in blends.
Today the distillery is owned by Pernod Ricard and remains the second best-selling single malt whisky in the world, after Glenfiddich.
This Glenlivet 1943 Cask 121 sold at our online auction for £140
