In 1962, David C. Stewart began work as an apprentice at William Grant & Sons. Some 55 years later, he's celebrating a truly impressive legacy as malt master at the Balvenie distillery in the whisky-producing region of Speyside, after many years as malt master for all William Grant & Sons operations.
So to celebrate his career, Balvenie has been releasing five sets of five different single cask whiskies every year, as part of the DCS Compendium series. The third release, the DCS Compedium Chapter 3 "Secrets of the Stock Model," has just been unveiled.
One of the bottles of the set includes Balvenie’s oldest-ever release available to the public, a 55-year-old whisky matured in a sherry oloroso hogshead cask. It was originally distilled on June 14, 1961, and bottled two days before it turned 56 years old.
“The whisky was laid down at our distillery in Dufftown before I joined the company," said Stewart, who was awarded an MBE last year for his service to the industry. "It’s a unique occasion seeing a liquid released that was distilled before my time. As a family-owned company, we’re afforded the freedom to release whiskies when the time is right, and it’s testament to our stock model that whisky as old as this can be left to mature for this length of time.”
The other whiskies in the collection include two sherry whiskies, a 1973 European oak oloroso sherry butt, and a different, 13-year-old oloroso butt distilled originally in 2004, when Stewart celebrated 30 years as malt master.
The final two celebrate Balvenie’s classic Doublewood whisky, one of the first to introduce the idea of moving the contents of one cask to another (called "finishing") for a shorter amount of time to produce a revolutionary new kind of maturation technique.
These include a 1981 refill American oak hogshead to mark the first vintage used to produce Balvenie DoubleWood in 1993, and 23-year-old whisky from 1993 that marks the switch to the bottle currently used by Balvenie.
Of course, such luxurious bottles don’t come cheap. The 50 Chapter 3 sets available worldwide are priced at £57,000. However, if you're just looking for the 55-year-old, there are another 15 bottles available at £35,000 each.
Though these would have been shocking whisky prices even 20 years ago, it's no longer surprising as demand for luxury malt skyrockets - and prices with them.
Balvenie is the latest in a long line of distilleries that have created expensive luxury malt collections for their wealthiest fans. I'm convinced that every single whisky in the Compendium collection is a phenomenal drink.
And for a chance to have a collection personally and lovingly curated by one of the universally recognized geniuses of the whisky world...well, that’s pretty close to priceless.
