Glenmorangie's fantastic new whisky is an innovative collaboration between master distiller Bill Lumsden and Japanese artist Azuma Makoto. It's the second time the two creatives have worked together—the first release was an 18-year-old single malt aged in bourbon barrels for 15 years and then placed into sherry casks for another three.
This new whisky is five years older than that previous juice, and was inspired by the concept of “shinra bansh,” or the love of nature. Makoto, a botanical artist who uses flowers as his main medium, was inspired to work on this new collaboration after visiting the distillery with Lumsden.
He drew on the flavors of the whisky to come up with a stunning sculpture, recreated for the bottle’s label, that's made up of over 200 natural components, including flowers like orchids and roses that Makoto sourced from the Ota market in Japan.
The whisky itself is a delicate, complex, and delicious single malt muse that marks another first for the distillery. Lumsden used classic Glenmorangie aged in bourbon barrels as the base of this expression and blended it with whisky aged in barrels previously used to mature Chardonnay from the Meursault appellation in Burgundy, France, which were first laid down in 2006.
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The result is a palate layered with notes of burnt orange, black pepper spice, cinnamon, molasses, vanilla, ginger, lemon, honey, and an oaky finish. It’s bottled at 46 percent alcohol by volume (ABV) and non-chill-filtered for maximum flavor.
“Our collaboration with Azuma Makoto is a delicious celebration of nature’s wonder,” says Lumsden. “Azuma-san’s stunning sculpture, featured on the whisky’s packaging, evokes the fragrant scents and elemental depths of this extraordinarily rare whisky—a gift from nature itself.”
Glenmorangie Dr. Bill Lumsden x Azuma Makoto 23 Years Old costs $1,300 per bottle. The limited-edition whisky is only available in select markets throughout the U.S. and a few other countries, however, so keep an eye out if you’d like to try it for yourself.
Glenmorangie is located in the Highland region of Scotland, and led by Dr. Bill Lumsden, a Willy Wonka-esque figure in the Scotch whisky industry. He’s earned that reputation through his penchant for experimentation, whether it's using virtually every type of cask available to mature whisky, incorporating different types of barley into the mash bill, and even building a micro distillery on the larger operation’s grounds to produce spirits that might not technically be considered Scotch per government regulations.
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