Glen Grant Says “The Time Has Come” As It Joins 50 Year Old Scotch Club

As distilleries in Scotland continue to grow older in terms of what’s on hand aging in old casks that were distilled and filled decades ago, you can expect we will start to see more high end whisky with top tier prices and old age statements. That was the case recently with a 50-year-old Bowmore single malt Scotch, and now the Glen Grant distillery, based in the Speyside region and owned by Gruppo Campari, has joined this illustrious club with its own 50-year-old expression.

The new Glen Grant 50 Year Old heralds from a cask that was hand filled with young whisky back on October 28, 1963. The man who filled this barrel, said the distillery, was one Dennis Malcolm, who later went on to become Glen Grant’s master distiller. He babysat the cask for the length of its aging, bottling up just 150 decanters of a spirit which will price for €10,000, or nearly $14,000, each.

Like the Bowmore, the presentation of this whisky in packaging is pretty staggering. It comes in, as Glen Grant put it, “a hand-blown crystal glass decanter, masterfully created and individually refined by the skilled craftsmen at Glencairn Crystal, the last family-owned crystal glass company in Scotland. Each decanter is hand engraved, hand numbered and finished with the number 50 in 18-carat gold lettering. The design of the decanter is an exact replica of Glen Grant’s tall, slender pot stills – a creation of Glen Grant’s legendary innovator, James ‘The Major’ Grant.”

The bottle itself, meanwhile, is “housed in a copper-lined Scottish oak box – made from new oak, worked by a skillful cabinetmaker with a practiced carpenter’s hand and an astute eye for detail.” Nice!

As for tasting notes, official distillery information describes a golden brown Scotch that on the nose is “soft and delectable with alluring aroma of toffee, caramel and subtle hints of dried fruits.” When it hits the palate it has a “wonderful mouth-feel with sweet sherry notes, combined with hints of orange and baked apples” that finishes “rich, robust and full yet smooth with soft lingering aftertaste.”

Availability wise, expect to first find bottles by month’s end in Asia’s travel retail market in places such as Hong Kong. By June this will expand internationally in other duty free and domestic markets.