Glen Grant 64 Year Old (Bottled 2014)

Distilled at Glen Grant in 1949, held in a single sherry cask for sixty-four years, and bottled by Gordon & MacPhail in 2014 as part of their Rare Vintage range. One cask, filled in the years just after the war, watched over in Elgin for longer than most drinkers have been alive. This is the sort of bottle that only Gordon & MacPhail, with its unrivalled bank of aged Glen Grant stock, could ever release.

Glen Grant is a Speyside distillery in Rothes, and its light, elegant house style is exactly why its spirit endures. Fill a heavier make into oak for sixty-four years and you get furniture polish; fill Glen Grant and you get something that keeps its fruit and grace. Decades in a single sherry cask have brought it to a soft 40% ABV, the natural landing point for a spirit this old, and layered it with slow, sherried depth.

From a bottle of this age and cask, expect the classics of ancient sherried Glen Grant: dried figs and dates, orange peel and old leather, polished oak, dark honey and a thread of bitter chocolate, with the gentle rancio that marks genuinely old whisky. Single-cask releases vary bottle to bottle, so treat detailed notes as a guide rather than a promise. What is certain is the provenance, the vanishing 1940s stock behind it, and the care such a bottle demands.

How to Serve

Neat, no water, in a Glencairn. Let it sit and breathe; at 64 years and 40% there is nothing to dilute and everything to savour.

Where to Drink It

Dukes Bar in St James's, discreet and fitting for something this precious. The Connaught Bar for expert hands. Boisdale, if the occasion calls for ceremony and a good cigar afterwards.

Food Pairings

None, really. A single Medjool date if you must, to echo the sherry fruit.