Glen Grant 50yo (circa US$13,000) has launched to key retail partners in Hong Kong and will debut at Galaxy in Macau this week.

 

The first of just 150 bottles of this exclusive and extremely rare expression was unveiled at the first of a series of private functions at Hong Kong’s Peninsula Hotel last night as part of its initial three-month exclusivity programme in Asian travel retail – beginning with DFS Hong Kong.

 

DFS will introduce the rare offering in Hong Kong this Friday (March 21) before it is also made available shortly afterwards in Singapore, Taiwan, China, Macau and Korea. Glen Grant 50 Year Old will then be introduced in selective airport locations and key domestic markets across the world from June 2014.

 

 

Glen Grant 50 Year Old is said to be ‘a fitting tribute to the innovation and whisky craftsmanship woven into the legend of Glen Grant’, with Dennis Malcolm, Master Distiller at Glen Grant co-hosting the private function launches in Hong Kong last night, before moving on to Galaxy in Macau later this week.

 

NEXT EXCITING CHAPTER

Commenting on the major development for Gruppo Campari Global Travel Retail Director Andy Holmes said: “This week marks the next exciting chapter for Glen Grant Single Malt in Travel Retail and we are very honoured that our partners in Asia Travel Retail are walking with us on this journey together – we look forward to further developing Glen Grant Single Malt in GTR being a core brand of our portfolio.”

 

The company says that each Glen Grant 50 Year Old comes with a certificate of authenticity, signed by Dennis Malcolm and every craftsman involved, with the product expertly crafted by hand and benefiting from the rare skills honed and passed down through the ages. “The Glen Grant 50 Year Old is the apotheosis of master craftsmanship: a wide array of age-old skills creating a collective masterpiece that is unquantifiable. It is both aged and timeless. But now, the time has come,” says the company.

 

A group shot featuring Dennis Williams, Master Distiller at Glen Grant (left central), our own International Sales & Marketing Director Nigel Hardy (right, central) and a suitably kilted Gruppo Campari Global Travel Retail Director Andy Holmes.

 

Adding his comments, Dennis Malcolm said: “Only time measures our pursuit of perfection. Maturation cannot be rushed. Like people, casks mature at their own pace. I have protected and cared for this barrel for 50 years, letting it breathe and patiently waiting for the magic and interaction of whisky and wood.”

 

CASK CREATED IN 1963

All of which began on 28 October 1963 when Dennis Malcolm hand filled this special cask as a young man, unaware that this whisky and the company that owns it would ultimately shape his destiny in the 50 years that passed until 25 November 2013, when it reached its height of readiness. The result is described as ‘a robust, full-bodied and perfectly balanced single malt of distinction’.

 

The most important guest of all.

 

The Glen Grant company says each hand-blown and hand numbered crystal glass decanter offering is unique and handcrafted ‘in every sense’ and has been 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, individually numbered and finished with the number 50 in 18-carat gold lettering, with the design created as an exact replica of Glen Grant’s tall, slender pot stills which were introduced by James ‘The Major’ Grant. The rare product also comes housed in a copper-lined Scottish oak box (made from new oak) which has been hand worked by ‘a skilful cabinetmaker’.

 

TOP IMAGE: Dennis Malcolm, Master Distiller at Glen Grant co-hosting the private function launch in Hong Kong last night.