Sotheby’s has partnered with The Glen Grant Distillery for the sale of a remarkable 70-year-old whiskey. Yes, it is the oldest single malt whisky to be released directly from the distillery and is a treasured collectible. The 70-year-old single malt called Devotion will be offered in just seven bottles, celebrating each decade of exquisite maturation. The cynosure is decanter number 1, the only one of the seven to be finished with engraved gold detailing alongside a chess-piece miniature and a set of hand-blown glasses mirroring the seven facets on the decanter.
Its connection to Her Highness Queen Elizabeth II makes the bottle even more desirable. Glen Grant Distillery celebrated the monarch with a 70-year-old age statement matching the length of her reign as British monarch. Drawn from a single French oak butt, the whiskey was seasoned with oloroso Sherry, filled in 1953. The resulting aroma offers ‘intense’ barley sugar, ripe peach, and honey sweetness.
Dennis Malcolm, the master distiller, said: “In the true spirit of The Glen Grant, we bring together the inspiring legacy of our story with the personal Devotion of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to realize this exquisite masterpiece. To be devoted, is to show unwavering loyalty and love to something you care for deeply, which sits at the heart of our whisky-making philosophy, as well as shining through with our creative collaborators. This is a lifetime of character and legacy captured in a magnificent creation, like nothing we have ever seen.”
Devotion comes encased in a hand-blown decanter created by Brodie Nairn of Glasstorm. The bottle features a silver capsule engraved with a different favorite flower of the Queen’s, ranging from a rose to an orchid to a begonia. The sculpture created by craftsman John Galvin is crafted out of a fallen elm tree on the distillery grounds. The first decanter will be auctioned via Sotheby’s for $88,800 to $139,500. The online auction will run from 11 September to 22 September, with all proceeds to be donated to the Royal Scottish Forestry Society. The other six decanters are expected to
