72-year-old Scotch gets a coveted recognition

One of the oldest single malts ever commercially bottled has been named as the World’s Finest Single Cask Whisky in Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2022.

Distilled in 1948, Jim Murray considered the 72-year-old Glen Grant, Cask 440, from Gordon and MacPhail to be truly stella, giving it 97.5 marks out of 100.

 “This whisky has had 72 years for something to go wrong with it. Instead, we have the near miraculous situation of a whisky sitting for 72 years in oak and everything going right with it. The chances for a whisky to reach this type of antiquity and hit this level of excellence are mind-blowing: it has to be one-in-a-million or more,” explained Jim.

The score equals the highest-ever recorded in Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible, which has now been published each year for the last 19 years, with over 20,000 whiskies tasted by Mr Murray during this period.

As well as being named the world’s finest single cask, the whisky has also picked up the title of Scotch Whisky of the Year.

However, the World Whisky of the Year in Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2022 was won by a bourbon named George T Stagg, from the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Kentucky. It is bottled at 65.2 percent abv, more than half the strength of a standard bottle of whisky.

George T Stagg, from the Buffalo Trace Distillery was named World Whisky of the Year in the first-ever Whisky Bible, back in 2003 but had not won the coveted title since 2006.

Here it deserves a mention that Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2022 contains tasting notes for nearly 5,000 drams from around the world. This is the biggest selling whisky guide, now in its 19th edition.