'Perfect' whisky gets leather treatment
30/07/2009
Scottish distiller William Grant & Sons has announced that it is preparing to bring to market its most special whisky, a 50-year-old Glenfiddich.
Two casks of the special single malt have been in special care in a warehouse at the Glenfiddich distillery since 1959, but company chairman, Peter Gordon, has decided that the time is now right to bottle it and bring it to market. "The Glenfiddich 50 Year Old is the pinnacle of our whisky-making excellence," he said. "We're happy to wait as long as we need to, up to 50 years in this instance, to produce the perfect whisky."
The "perfect" whisky, naturally, comes at a price. William Grant & Sons says it will release just 50 bottles of it each year for the next decade, with each bottle carrying a recommended retail price of £10,000. The whisky will become available at selected airports around the world for the next few months, before being made available through a small number of retailers and whisky societies.
For such a high price, whisky connoisseurs will receive some attractive extras. Each bottle is hand-blown and numbered, with decorations in Scottish silver, crafted by Birmingham-based, sixth-generation silversmith, Thomas Fattorini. And cementing the association between luxury products and leather, each bottle will be presented in a hand-sewn leather-bound case, lined with grey silk, and will come with a leather-bound book giving background information on the product.
The company has used stippled leather for the covers of these books, to give an attractive, old-fashioned texture. It said its inspiration for this touch was the type of ledger in which the company's founder, William Grant, recorded transactions.
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