Glen Ord

Glen Ord is one of the best exponents of the smoother end of the Highland style, but for some reason Diageo (and predecessors Guinness and Scottish Malt Distillers) seem always to have struggled to fit it into the portfolio. Bafflingly over-looked when the original selection for the Classic Malts was being made (especially considering that the company then chose to include Dalwhinnie as a Highlander, when many writers consider it to being Speyside), European malt fans were horrified when it was announced recently that the Glen Ord 12yo was being discontinued, with the company choosing to concentrate on a reformulated, repackaged version under the Singleton rubric -available only for the Asian market.

As well as the now-discontinued 12-year-old, several older official bottlings have been released in the last decade or so. These include a handful of aged cask-strength bottlings for the Rare Malts series, followed by an acclaimed trio of long-aged, cask-strength expressions for Diageo’s annual ‘Special Releases’.There have been several highly collectable limited editions and independent bottlings, the most accomplished of which is the legendary 1962 Ord bottled by Samaroli for their ‘Bouquet’ series.