THEDAILYWHISKY

Three casks, 108 years of combined maturation, and not one of them done the same way.

Rare Find, the flagship label of Edinburgh’s Gleann Mòr Spirits Company, has unveiled The Long Game: a 36-year-old Macallan, a 38-year-old Tormore and a 34-year-old Deanston, each bottled from a single cask in 2026. The bottler’s own pitch for the collection is simple: there is no shortcut to whisky like this.

What makes the trio interesting is less the ages than the way sherry has been used. One spent its life in a refill butt that lets the spirit lead. One was given a short, rich finish in fresh oloroso wood. One sat in a second-fill PX butt and came out the darkest of the three.

Rare Find The Long Game at a glance

	Deanston 34	Macallan 36	Tormore 38
Region	Highlands	Speyside	Speyside
Distilled / bottled	1991 / 2026	1990 / 2026	1988 / 2026
Cask	2nd fill PX sherry butt	Refill sherry butt	27-month finish in 1st fill oloroso barrique
Cask no.	001	11317	26087
ABV	48.8%	54.1%	54.6%
Outturn	72 bottles	18 bottles	198 bottles
Profile (per Rare Find)	Fruit cake, tobacco, cinnamon	Stone fruit, ripe tropical fruit	Honey, crème caramel, spice

All three are 70cl, bottled at cask strength, non-chill filtered and natural colour.

What is Rare Find The Long Game?

The Long Game is a themed release within Rare Find’s single cask range, launched in October 2026. Every bottle in it has spent more than three decades in oak, and each comes from one cask only, so the outturn is whatever that cask gave.

All three wear the black and gold label Rare Find reserves for its rarest releases. Following the bottler’s 2026 redesign, each label also carries a colour-coded regional roundel (green for the Highlands, pink for Speyside) alongside the cask type and number, which makes the provenance readable at a glance.

Macallan 1990 36 Year Old: 18 bottles from a refill butt

The headline bottle. Macallan distilled this spirit in 1990, nine years before Edrington took full ownership of the distillery, and it has spent the following 36 years in a refill sherry butt.

That cask choice matters. A refill butt gives a gentler sherry influence than fresh wood, so after three and a half decades the oily, full-bodied character Macallan’s small stills are known for still has room to speak. The natural colour in the bottle is a pale gold rather than mahogany, which tells you a lot before you pour.

Only 18 bottles exist. That is the smallest outturn Rare Find lists across its whole range, and at 54.1% ABV the whisky is still bottled well above the strength most distillery releases of this age carry.

Rare Find Macallan 36 Year Old: tasting notes (from Rare Find)

Nose: Honeycomb, Manuka honey, beeswax, Mirabelle plum, peach Melba, milk chocolate, white pepper, dusty dunnage floor

Palate: Syrupy, ripe stone fruit moving into tropical fruit, golden tobacco leaf, cinnamon, polished oak, steeped tea

Finish: Long and sweet, tropical fruit and honeyed richness as the oak and tea recede ABV: 54.1% | Cask: Refill sherry butt #11317 | Outturn: 18 bottles

Tormore 1988 38 Year Old: Speyside’s 20th-century pioneer, finished in oloroso

Tormore was the first new distillery built in Speyside in the 20th century, starting production at Advie in 1959. Its architect, Sir Albert Richardson, designed it as a complete village as well as a distillery, and the Category B-listed buildings remain one of the most recognisable sights on the A95.

For most of its history Tormore’s fruity, orchard-led spirit went into blends. Elixir Distillers bought the distillery in 2022 and has since brought back its single malt range, so a 38-year-old independent bottling arrives at a moment when the distillery’s own profile is rising.

Rare Find gave this 1988 spirit a final 27 months in a first-fill oloroso sherry barrique. At around 225 litres, a barrique is a smaller cask than a standard butt, which means more wood contact in a short window. The result, according to the bottler, layers richness and warmth over a spirit that has already been softened by decades in oak.

It is also the most available bottle of the three by a distance: 198 individually numbered bottles at 54.6% ABV, the highest strength in the collection.

Rare Find Tormore 38 Year Old: tasting notes (from Rare Find)

Nose: Golden syrup, toffee, warm custard, crisp apple peel, gentle earthiness, marshmallow

Palate: Polished oak, crème caramel, alfalfa honey, wine gums, dry dusty spice

Finish: Elegant and lingering, grassy fruit and honey fading into fine mead

ABV: 54.6% | Cask: 27-month finish in 1st fill oloroso barrique, cask #26087 | Outturn: 198 bottles

Deanston 1991 34 Year Old: a cotton mill distillery in a PX butt

Deanston sits on the River Teith near Doune in Perthshire, inside a converted 18th-century cotton mill. It began distilling in 1966 and still runs on power from its own hydro turbine, generating enough to export surplus electricity to the grid.

The house style comes from an open-topped mash tun, long fermentations and slow distillation, which together give Deanston its signature waxy texture with honey and fruit on top. That waxiness is the reason Rare Find says it seeks the distillery out: it carries through long maturation without being buried.

This 1991 cask was bottled from a second-fill Pedro Ximénez sherry butt, and it is visibly the darkest whisky in the line-up despite the cask having been used once before. Thirty-four years of PX contact will do that. At 48.8% ABV it is also the lowest strength of the three, a natural consequence of decades of evaporation rather than any reduction with water.

72 bottles were filled, each individually numbered.

Rare Find Deanston 34 Year Old: tasting notes (from Rare Find)

Nose: Lacquered mahogany, stewed plums, Christmas pudding, roasted almonds, berry compote, mentholated oak

Palate:Fruit cake, stewed fruit, polished wood, dried tobacco leaf, old leather, raspberry liqueur, dry cinnamon

Finish: Refined, mature oak and stewed fruit giving way to malt loaf sweetness

ABV: 48.8% | Cask: 2nd fill PX sherry butt, cask #001 | Outturn: 72 bottles

Three ways to use a sherry cask

Lined up together, The Long Game reads almost like a lesson in sherry maturation.

The Macallan shows what a refill butt does over 36 years: restraint, with honey, stone fruit and dunnage character rather than dried fruit and spice. The Tormore shows what a short, intense finish in fresh oloroso can add to a long-matured spirit. The Deanston shows the depth a PX butt reaches with time, even on its second fill.

The colours tell the same story. Natural colour on all three means that pale gold, burnished amber and deep mahogany come purely from the wood. For anyone who has read our guide to whisky cask types, this is the theory poured into three glasses.

Who is Rare Find?

Rare Find is the main label of Gleann Mòr Spirits Company, an independent bottler that started in 2015 on an industrial estate in Leith and is now based in Edinburgh. Independent bottlers buy casks from distilleries rather than making their own spirit, then mature, finish and bottle them under their own name.

Rare Find bottles single casks only, typically at natural strength with no chill filtration or added colour. It has released whisky from more than 40 distilleries, from 6 to 50 years old, and redesigned its range in 2026 around three label colours: deep teal for modern releases, plum burgundy for rich cask styles, and black gunmetal for its rarest bottles. The Long Game sits firmly in that last group.

Price and availability

At the time of writing, all three bottles are listed as coming soon on rarefindwhisky.co.uk, with a register-for-updates option on each product page. Prices have not yet been published.

Rare Find’s webshop currently delivers to UK addresses only. International buyers can contact the team directly about availability, and Rare Find releases are also carried by UK stockists including Royal Mile Whiskies, The Whisky Exchange and The Whisky Shop, some of which ship abroad. Whether The Long Game will reach stockists has not been confirmed.

Members of Rare Find’s Vault programme receive 10% off bottles bought on the bottler’s own site.

Our take

We have not tasted these yet, so no verdict on the liquid. What we can say is that this is a well-built collection. Three distilleries with very different reputations, three different sherry approaches, and all at natural strength with nothing added.

The Macallan will be the bottle collectors chase, and with 18 bottles most people will not get one. The Tormore is the most realistic purchase and arguably the most intriguing, a chance to taste a distillery that spent decades in blends at nearly 40 years old. The Deanston is the one for drinkers who want old-school sherry depth from a distillery that is rarely seen at this age.

If any of the three is on your list, register on the product pages now. With outturns this small, release day will move quickly.

Frequently asked questions

What is Rare Find The Long Game? Rare Find The Long Game is an October 2026 collection of three single cask Scotch whiskies from Edinburgh independent bottler Rare Find: a Macallan 1990 36 Year Old, a Tormore 1988 38 Year Old and a Deanston 1991 34 Year Old. Each has matured for more than 30 years and is bottled at cask strength without colouring or chill filtration.

How much does Rare Find The Long Game cost? Rare Find has not yet published prices for the three bottles, which are listed as coming soon on rarefindwhisky.co.uk. For context, standard Rare Find releases start at £59 and most sit around £100, with the oldest single casks priced higher. Expect all three of these 30-plus-year-old whiskies to sit well above that range. [UPDATE WITH PRICES]

Where can I buy the Rare Find Macallan 36 Year Old? The Rare Find Macallan 36 Year Old will be sold through rarefindwhisky.co.uk, where you can register for release updates. Only 18 bottles exist, the smallest outturn in the Rare Find range. The webshop ships to UK addresses only, so international buyers should contact Rare Find directly or check with UK stockists that ship abroad.

What casks are used in Rare Find The Long Game? All three bottles use sherry casks in different ways. The Macallan 36 matured in refill sherry butt 11317. The Tormore 38 received a 27-month finish in first-fill oloroso barrique 26087. The Deanston 34 was bottled from second-fill Pedro Ximénez sherry butt 001. All three are single casks, so each release comes from one cask only.

Are the Rare Find Long Game whiskies cask strength? Yes. All three are bottled at natural cask strength: 54.6% ABV for the Tormore 38, 54.1% for the Macallan 36 and 48.8% for the Deanston 34. None has been reduced with water, chill filtered or coloured. The lower Deanston strength reflects natural alcohol loss over 34 years in cask rather than dilution.

Who is Rare Find whisky? Rare Find is the flagship label of Gleann Mòr Spirits Company, an independent bottler founded in 2015 in Leith and now based in Edinburgh. It selects single casks from more than 40 Scottish distilleries, sometimes finishing them in new casks, and bottles each one as a limited release at natural strength without chill filtration or added colour.