Glenmorangie has unveiled the oldest whisky ever bottled by its Highland distillery, with just 149 bottles of the 50 year old single malt being released worldwide.
The exceptionally rare whisky traces its beginnings to Tain in the mid 1970s and even contains spirit made using some of the final batches of barley malted on the distillery’s own floor maltings before they closed in 1977.
Glenmorangie 50 Years Old began life in bourbon hogsheads and first fill Oloroso sherry butts after being distilled in the famously tall copper stills at Tain.
By the time Dr Bill Lumsden arrived as Distillery Manager in 1995, the whisky had already spent around two decades quietly maturing.
He identified a small number of casks which he believed had the potential to continue ageing considerably longer.
In 1999, whisky from those casks was selected, with liquid predominantly matured in bourbon barrels combined with a smaller proportion from sherry butts before being married in a single refill hogshead.
It remained there for another 25 years.
Now, half a century after the story began, Dr Bill has decided the whisky is finally ready.
“The release of the Glenmorangie 50 Years Old has to be one of my proudest creations.
“I often wondered if the day would ever come that we’d be able to bottle a Glenmorangie with such a mighty age statement.”
The whisky is described as dark mahogany in colour, with aromas including baked oranges, sultanas and nutmeg followed by flavours of toffee, Assam tea, birch tar, cinnamon, clove and oak.
It has been bottled at cask strength of 45.7% ABV, with an equally remarkable £25,800 recommended price.
And the presentation of the 149 bottles has taken almost as much patience as the final years of maturation.
American ceramic artists Peter and Laurie Pincus and their studio team spent 1,000 days creating 149 individual porcelain display vessels for the release.
Fifty bespoke colour pigments were developed for the project, with every vessel receiving an individual pattern applied by hand.
When placed together, the vessels form a larger tessellated artwork called Together in Spirit, while every individual bottle retains its own unique design.
The connection with Glenmorangie’s past makes the whisky particularly significant for Dr Bill.
He said:
“It’s also particularly special that this whisky was created from some of the last batches of barley to be malted on site at the distillery in the mid-1970s, which has added rare hints of smoke to its flavour profile.”
Glenmorangie 50 Years Old will be available through the company’s private client service, selected retailers and, appropriately for a whisky which has spent half a century getting there, from the distillery visitor centre in Tain.
