Glen Moray reveals details of ‘Mastery’

Glen Moray’s master distiller has spoken of what it was like to pull together the limited edition bottling for the distillery’s 120^th anniversary.

The Scotch producer announced earlier this year that it would be launching a multi-vintage ‘blend’ as a special edition to mark its 120^th anniversary, dubbed ‘Mastery’.

The final whisky is a blend of five different vintages of Glen Moray matured in either ex-Sherry, Madeira or Port casks.

Speaking to the drinks business, head distiller Graham Coull explained that he was, “given a blank canvas to work with, which sounds great but then you realise what you have to do.”

Not to be overawed by the scale of the task Coull said that certain “themes” quickly presented themselves.

Principally he noted: “There have only been five master distillers in its [Glen Moray’s] history. So I tried to pull together a theme and Glen Moray has alays been quite innovative with different cask finishes – particularly wine casks.

“We had a lovely 1994 maturing in a Madeira cask, actually its second maturation because its first was in an ex-Bourbon cask, and I decided to make that the heart.”

The final blend includes two whiskies made during Coull’s time as master distiller and three more from the times of his two immediate predecessors, Edwin Dodson who ran the distillery from 1987 to 2005 and Robert Brown who was in charge from 1959-1987.

As explained in a statement from the distillery, “the Port finished whisky brings a little lightness, which we felt balances the more robust flavours of Sherry and Madeira casks in the blend.”

Only 1,000 decanters have been released, each with an abv of 52.3% – “as cask strength as it can be,” as Coull noted – and a recommended retail price of US$1,000 per bottle.