Eighty five years in the making. One hundred and 25 decanters produced. £125,000 a pop.
Released on the 2 October, and already almost entirely sold out...
\"More people will have summited Everest this year alone than will ever get to taste this whisky, never mind own it,\" declares Stephen Rankin, Director of Prestige at Gordon and MacPhail. \"There's something like 600, 700 people - maybe more than that - start off to summit Everest and they tend to all do it in the springtime and about 60 or 70 percent of those people will ever actually reach the top.\"
It's some statistic that puts into context just how special Gordon and MacPhail's 85 year old single malt from Glenlivet Distillery is.
\"You're talking about one of the rarest, most historic, scarcest, not just whiskies in the world, but matured spirits in the world,\" Stephen continues. \"I don't know if there's many other spirits - because spirits are matured in the cask that as soon as you take it ouf the cask that's the age stopped. There will be older bottles in the world bu there won't be older matured spirits in the world so it could be the oldest matured spirit in the world as well.\"
On 3 February 1940, just five months after the start of the Second World War, Stephen's grandfather George Urquhart and great-grandfather John, filled a sherry cask made from American oak with new make spirit from Glenlivet. The cask, Stephen says, \"was selected because it was a big sherry transport cask. These casks were very different. They were, one it was made of an American oak because it's a little bit tougher and tighter. The grain is much tighter and the staves were made much, much thicker.
\"It was there to withstand the rigmarole of being rolled around quay sides and platforms before going on boats and trains an the like, and ultimately end up in the far north of Scotland.\"
The barley had come from the last peace-time harvest. And filling the cask, Stephen says, \"was an act of hope and optimism.\"
In this episode John talks to Stephen about why this whisky is so special; how it survived the war years when whisky was in short supply and was monitored over the intervening years before being bottled and released.
Slàinte!
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Creator & producer: David Holmes
Art work & design: Jess Robertson
Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)
Vocals: Andrea Cunningham
Guitars: John Beattie
Bass: Alasdair Vann
Drums: Alan Hamilton
Bagpipes: Calum McColl
Accordion: Gary Innes
Music & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John Beattie
Recorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, Scotland
Special thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland
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