One of the oldest independent bottlers in the World, Gordon & MacPhail approached Glencairn to assist in the development of the now iconic tear shaped decanter, to hold (at the time) the oldest whiskies in the world.
The first bottling of Mortlach 70-year-old was followed by The Glenlivet 70-year-old. The teardrop shaped decanter was created specifically for this project in line with Gordon & MacPhail’s brief. The decanters each had a silver base that was used as a cradle. The bases for the decanters were handmade, as each had to be matched up to the decanter it was cradling—this was due to the minor differences in decanter wall thickness. The cork that was used for the decanters was taken from the highest quality cork available at the time of production. Again, with the varying decanter wall thicknesses of each handmade decanter, the cork had to be sized and matched individually to each decanter in order for the spirit to be sealed properly. Finally, the whisky was bottled in both 70cl and 20cl versions of the decanter, so we had to repeat all of the processes that were used on the 70cl versions, with the much smaller and more difficult to work on 20cl versions.
