Just ten bottles of the Glen Grant Dennis Malcolm 60th Anniversary Edition – a special drop honouring its long-serving master distiller by the Rothes distillery – are available in Singapore.
It is not often that The Glen Grant releases a new expression. So when the Rothes-based single malt Scotch distillery does, it’s generally noteworthy. Well, its latest drop is perhaps one of the most significant in recent history: the Glen Grant Dennis Malcolm 60th Anniversary Edition.
While this 60-year old whisky is not the oldest Glen Grant ever to be released – that honour belongs to the Glen Grant 1948 70 Year Old Private Collection bottled by independent bottler Gordon & MacPhail – it was launched to honour The Glen Grant’s master distiller Dennis Malcolm’s six decades with the distillery.
Indeed Malcolm is one of the longest-serving distillers in Scotland. Born in 1946 on The Glen Grant’s distillery grounds – where both his father and grandfather worked – Malcolm became an apprentice cooper there at the age of 15. He rose to become a brewer ten years later. When The Glen Grant was amalgamated in 1972 into The Glenlivet Distillers Ltd along with The Glenlivet, Longmorn, and Hill Thompson, Malcolm joined the fold. He became the Glenlivet distillery’s general manager in 1979 until his return to The Glen Grant as general manager in 1983. By 1992, he was made GM of the Chivas Glenlivet Group.
Malcolm again returned to The Glen Grant in 2005, when the Campari Group purchased the distillery.
Over the years he’s also picked up numerous awards, including being inducted into the Whisky Magazine Hall of Fame in 2014 and in 2015. In 2015 he also received the Whisky Advocate Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as being honoured with the International Wine and Spirits Competition’s Outstanding Achievement in the Scotch Whisky Industry Award the same year. In 2016 Dennis Malcolm became Dennis Malcolm OBE, when he was recognised by the Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to Scotch whisky.
He serves at The Glen Grant to this day.
The Glen Grant Dennis Malcolm 60th Anniversary Edition pays tribute to Malcolm’s storied history. More importantly, his definitive role in shaping The Glen Grant and overall Scotch whisky history as a strong adherent to tradition (possibly one of the reasons why the distillery held out on releasing a non-age statement whisky until the Glen Grant Arboralis in 2020 to celebrate its 180th anniversary).
His diamond anniversary edition follows that tradition. I was privileged to be able to sit in a virtual session with Malcolm where I got to taste this precious 60-year old drop. Malcolm shared that it comes from a single ex-Oloroso sherry cask – #5040, to be exact – that was filled on 24 October 1960. Non-chill filtered and bottled at 52.8% ABV, this whisky explodes with the incredible sweet richness you’d expect from one aged for very long in a sherry cask. The wood has mostly taken over the Glen Grant’s signature apple notes, imbuing an intensity of flavours that reminds one of Christmas fruit cake doused in brandy custard. You are looking at notes of candied fruit and caramelised nuts, Christmas spices, sweet wood spice, with just a touch of tobacco smoke that adds a mysterious ethereal quality to the entire experience.
“It’s never been a job to me, it’s been a way of life,” Malcolm muses on his diamond anniversary with The Glen Grant. “I don’t like my actual birthday – that makes me a year older. But I like my milestones with Glen Grant because it’s a year longer than I’m here. I can keep doing what I was destined to do.”
The Glen Grant Dennis Malcolm 60th Anniversary Edition comes under Campari Group’s new RARE Division of super-premium spirits. Only 360 bottles of this limited-edition whisky is available worldwide, and just 10 bottles available in Singapore, priced at S$39,888 per bottle. Interested parties can contact Andrew Law at andrew.law@remy-cointreau.com.
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