IT STARTS AS WHISKEY AND ENDS AS INVESTMENT
The Glenlivet 85 Year Old
G & M’s 85 YO Glenlivet, the oldest, rarest Scotch whisky ever bottled – distilled in 1940, bottled in 2025 – a Sherry butt time capsule showing astonishing freshness and depth. Presented in a specially designed decanter called ‘Artistry in Oak’. There is something extraordinarily special about an ultra-aged whisky. It’s more than the rarity that such exceptional whiskies possess or the incredible cost that they can command.
The Speyside winter of early 1940 was hard in more ways than one: the onset of the Second World War had led to a drastic reduction in the output of Scotch whisky distilleries, including perhaps the most famous of them all: The Glenlivet. Most plants had already cut distillation by half; The Glenlivet by two-thirds.
At such a difficult time, The Glenlivet owner Bill Smith Grant welcomed the prospect of filling a few casks for Gordon & MacPhail (G&M), the Elgin-based grocer that was also the licensed bottler for the distillery. On 3 February 1940, G&M’s John Urquhart and his son George, only 21 at the time, oversaw the filling of five ex-Sherry hogsheads, including cask number 336 – destined to become the oldest single malt in history.
Gordon & MacPhail commissioned a creative partner to design a unique decanter to house what is described as its most precious whisky to date.
Internationally acclaimed American architect Jeanne Gang was chosen for the job, and her design has been shaped through her close observation of growth and form in nature. The decanter design by Gang is described as a celebration of the profound artistry, craft, care and time alongside nature that went into the liquid it encases.
Ageing a whisky beyond the average human lifespan is a complex and delicate business. Will enough of the liquid survive, and will it be of the required quality and alcoholic strength? Rankin estimates that only about 20% of the original spirit remained in cask 336 when it was bottled, at a strength of 43.7% ABV (the legal minimum for Scotch is 40%).
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