Exclusively Forres Benromach

It may be on the fringes of Speyside, but Tom Morton heads for Elgin and Forres for total immersion whisky therapy.

by Tom Morton

I’m a FAN OF Forres. And Elgin. I lived for a time in nearby Nairn and also spent a memorable few weeks filming at the Findhorn Foundation, famed for its varied diet of spirituality, eco-housing, giant vegetables and fantastic roundhouses made, appropriately enough, of old wooden whisky washbacks. I have appeared at the Spirit of Speyside whisky festival in an Elgin bar, and spent time in various Elgin bars just for fun.

But Elgin, for me, has always been synonymous with Gordon and Macphail. The fantastic grocery shop, long before whisky specialists became common on high streets, offered a phenomenal selection of single malts, and Gordon and Macphail have bottled some of my favourite drams, notably the now elusive and eye wateringly expensive 1974 Connoisseurs Choice Ardbeg, thought by some experts to be the finest Islay whisky ever made.