THE SPEYSIDE CHALLENGE

After being elected as president of The Scottish Licensed Trade Benevolent Society (The BEN) and one year after receiving a life-saving double heart bypass operation, David Urquhart, UK Sales Director for Gordon and MacPhail, has raised approximately £10,000 for The BEN/Moray Cardiac Project, among other charities, by cycling around all 44 operational distilleries in Speyside in September this year.

In addition to the cycle ride, David has been raising additional monies for the following charities: Moray Cardiac, The Benevolent Society, Riding for the Disabled, Multiple Sclerosis and the RNLI, by collecting cask samples from each distillery visited. These samples will be vatted together by Gordon and MacPhail to create five bottles of a unique Pride of Strathspey, which will be later auctioned off.

David has also gathered a collection of 45 distillery bottlings, which have been signed by the Distillery Managers. This complete collection was auctioned at the BEN Barrel Ball, raising a further £5,000. Bought by Ross and Kath Murray, they have been safely returned to Speyside to take pride of place in their new home – The Mansfield Hotel in Elgin.

David has received an overwhelming amount of support. Lossiemouth’s Steamboat bar have been collecting money for David, which they presented to him yesterday in a traditional sea town fashion, by smashing the bottle in which the money had been collected. Unfortunately, David was not the only one to have been on a small journey, the collection bottle was stolen from the bar in the Steamboat bar and held in police custody for evidence before being returned safely and handed over by Steamboat owner, Peter Sinclair. The total raised by the Steamboat was £252, which has been added to the grand total above.

For more information / photographs / images
please contact the Marketing Department at
Gordon & MacPhail on 01343 545111.
Gordon & MacPhail, George House, Boroughbriggs Road, Elgin, IV30 1JY

• info@gordonandmacphail.com
• www.benromach.com
• www.gordonandmacphail.com

ABOUT GORDON & MACPHAIL
The family owned firm of Gordon and MacPhail is the World’s Leading Malt Whisky Specialist with over 109 years experience in maturing and bottling single malt whiskies. Since their founding in 1895, Gordon and MacPhail have purchased ‘new make’ whisky, matured and bottled it to provide the most extensive selection of single malts for sale to a discerning public the world over. This Elgin based company bought Benromach Distillery in Forres in 1993. They re-opened it in 1998 and are now distillers in their own right, thus completing the cycle of production, maturation and bottling, through to distribution and selling. In 2003, they were awarded the Royal Highland & Agricultural Society of Scotland (RHASS) Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of their contribution to the Scotch Whisky industry. David Urquhart was elected President of The BEN for the year 2004-05.

ABOUT THE SCOTTISH LICENSED TRADE BENEVOLENT SOCIETY
The BEN’s mission is to help and care for former members of the licensed trade in Scotland by offering both financial and practical care in other ways. They hold several major fund raising events throughout the year.

ABOUT MORAY CARDIAC PROJECT
Proposals for enhancing the accommodation and increasing the staff and equipment at Dr Gray’s Hospital, Elgin, will enable a “one stop” service to be provided for cardiology patients. Funding as yet has not been obtained to implement the changes.