Longmorn 30 yo 1973 / 2004 Duncan Taylor 51.1% vs Longmorn-Glenlivet 12 yo Gordon & Macphail ‘Pure Malt’ 100 proof 57% ~80s bottling

Longmorn 30 yo 1973 / 2004 Duncan Taylor 51.1%

Great distillery, great whisky. This period of Longmorn was marked by fruit and it shows here, warm sunny hues of green fields of wild flowers, runny honey, pollen, apricots, tinned peaches and yellow kiwis. Acerbic grapefruit peel, pineapple juice, hot clay, iron filings and flinty chalky earth like a great white wine. Mineral oil, sour sap and biting fruit acid on the tongue provides texture. Smears of black grease and dirt. 90 pts

Longmorn-Glenlivet 12 yo Gordon & Macphail ‘Pure Malt’ 100 proof 57% ~80s bottling

Slathered in sherry, a real thick and meaty sherry, with burnt hairs, blackened ends and drippings, char, tar soot muddy gravel and hot things. Unsweetened cocoa, dried out plums, musty figs, oxidised port and soy sauce. Medicinal shop, camphor wood, dried mint and black tea reduction plus boiled oak bark … so that’s a lot going on but up a familiar alley. This is a beefy whisky from that school of old style sherry matured giants which several distilleries were capable of, but no way I would guess Longmorn blind here. 90 pts