William Grant & Sons’ luxury whisky arm, House of Hazelwood, plans to unveil what they hope will be the world’s very first 100-year-old grain whisky in 2065. But the full narrative behind this audacious project is far richer than a simple quest for longevity, encompassing a powerful reaction against the ‘commoditisation’ of high-end whisky and drawing inspiration from an unlikely source: the legendary hip-hop collective, Wu-Tang Clan.
The rare whisky market has been nothing short of molten-hot in recent years. At times, it’s felt like an arms race to launch ever older expressions, from independent bottlers like Gordon & MacPhail’s septuagenarian Mortlach and 80-year-old Glenlivet, to successive Macallan offerings that have tipped the scales at a staggering 78, 81, and even 84 years old. This naturally prompts an intriguing question: just how high can you go?
Well, if House of Hazelwood’s One For The Next project reaches its ambitious fruition, the answer is a resounding 100 years. This luxury arm of William Grant & Sons, which meticulously stewards the owning Gordon family’s considerable maturing stocks of venerable whiskies, has recently released a 60-year-old single grain whisky, meticulously sourced from the company’s renowned Girvan distillery.
There are only 25 bottles available of One For The Next Chapter One, each with a recommended selling price of £10,000. But here’s the fascinating twist: only a small proportion of this extraordinary whisky has been bottled. The vast majority will remain to mature over the coming decades, destined to be successively bottled at 70, 80, 90, and ultimately, 100 years of age.
On the surface, these figures might suggest yet another glitzy, out-of-reach exercise in whisky grandstanding – the very kind of thing that often enrages enthusiasts who wistfully yearn for the days when you could pick up a bottle of Black Bowmore for just over £100. However, the philosophy underpinning One For The Next is, if anything, the polar opposite of such soulless high-net-worth individual marketing.
“A couple of threads really came together,” explains Jonathan Gibson, House of Hazelwood director. He vividly recalls a pivotal conversation with Kirsten Grant Meikle, the fifth-generation family member who serves on the House of Hazelwood board. “I was talking to her about a project that would give collectors the opportunity to get into the mindset of the family, because it’s very much a family project.”
“Each generation has taken what was passed to them. You take what was given to you, make it bigger, more varied, and more interesting. Then the next generation does the same thing. Whisky as a category is about the future; it’s not about today.”
As a keen hip-hop enthusiast, Gibson also found profound inspiration in Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin – a studio album of which only one copy was ever made, subsequently selling for US$2 million in 2015, on the strict condition that it would not be commercially released until 2103. Despite the rather unhappy dénouement of that particular project – a convoluted tale of legal wrangles and NFTs – Gibson cites it as a prime example of “creating something of value that wasn’t for now, but was for generations down the line.”
This concept, he argues, resonates particularly strongly in the current era of the ‘flipper’ – an individual who acquires a bottle of whisky not for personal enjoyment or to enrich their collection, but solely to sell it on for short-term financial gain. In stark contrast, One For The Next – assuming, of course, that purchasers continue to acquire the successively older four whiskies as they are bottled – represents a profound investment in the future, potentially extending beyond an individual’s own lifespan.
“A lot of people we sell to are in the middle of their lives,” says Gibson. “Hopefully people who start the journey [of buying the whiskies] will manage to finish the journey, but probably a lot of them won’t. So this involves building up something very personal to them, but that they can pass on for their children to enjoy in the future.”
There’s absolutely no compulsion for anyone to purchase all the whiskies, but those who acquire the 60-year-old expression will be given first refusal on all future releases. Gibson confirms that each of the buyers to date – he estimates “about half” of the 25 bottles have been sold in the month or so since the project was unveiled – fully intends to complete the set. In some cases, purchasers are even making detailed financial plans to enable their heirs to do so, should they pass away in the intervening period.
The collection is designed to be housed in a bespoke display cabinet, meticulously crafted from wood harvested from the very gardens of Hazelwood House, the Gordon family’s ancestral Speyside home. However, theoretically, a purchaser could use it to showcase One For The Next Chapter One alongside four other, entirely unrelated whiskies.
Not that Gibson believes this will happen. The underlying idea is that involvement in this project forges a close, personal bond between the purchasers, the whisky itself, and the company. He genuinely hopes that buyers will travel to Scotland, meet the family, and engage with the dedicated team behind the creation of One For The Next. “It’s just moving away from the short-termism that we’ve seen in the whisky market over recent years – the commoditisation of top-end, rare whisky where the romance, magic, and personal connection have been replaced with something a bit colder,” he explains.
That ethos perhaps perfectly complements the distinctive character of House of Hazelwood, with its esoteric array of long-aged releases – grains, blends, and blended malts, often bearing quirky names such as A Minute to Midnight, The Old Ways, and Queen of Hebrides. This unique approach, Gibson suggests, is a significant draw for collectors who have already explored iconic Sherried Speyside single malts and are now seeking something new. “They’re looking for something different,” he says. “We can offer a whole other part of the Scotch whisky market that people haven’t even looked at. Old grain whisky is a great example of that.”
However attractive the concept may be, there are considerable challenges inherent in getting a whisky to its centenary. Two perils loom particularly large: the risk that the ABV (Alcohol By Volume) of the liquid might drop below 40% (at which point it can no longer legally be bottled as Scotch whisky); and the persistent danger that the wood influence from the cask might utterly overwhelm the delicate distillate.
House of Hazelwood’s ingenious solution involves re-racking the 60-year-old whisky into specially coopered, “very well-used” European oak hogshead casks. European oak’s thicker staves should effectively inhibit evaporative losses, and the aged wood should impart no appreciable flavour directly over the coming decades.
The casks themselves, meanwhile, are meticulously squirrelled away deep in a dark corner of a particularly cool, semi-subterranean warehouse on the historic Convalmore distillery site in Dufftown. “We wouldn’t do the project if we didn’t think it would get to 100 years of age,” Gibson emphatically states. “But we’ve been very careful not to be definite about it. That’s more because the future is unknowable.”
Equally unknowable is the precise state of the rare whisky market in 40 years’ time. Just eighteen months ago, a single bottle of Macallan sold at auction for a staggering £2.2 million; today, the bull market in luxury expressions has decidedly turned bearish. How does this volatile landscape affect One For The Next?
“To be completely honest, it doesn’t make it easier, and part of the reason for that is that there’s probably more competition for the same clients, the same people – and the confidence of buyers is lower than it has been, and understandably so,” admits Gibson.
“But we’ve never played on the ‘investor’ side, so we’re less exposed to that than some. In many ways, House of Hazelwood is a complicated brand for people to understand… There’s something quite nice about the shared endeavour that we go into with our clients. There’s that element of trust.”
Tasting Note: One For The Next Chapter One, 60-Year-Old Single Grain Scotch Whisky
£10,000/70cl, available exclusively to order from House of Hazelwood and WG&S Distillers Libraries
On the nose, it’s surprisingly floral – an exquisite symphony of jasmine and honeysuckle, followed by a delicate waft of lilies in full bloom. Classic grain notes of buttery popcorn and sweetshop counter then emerge, gently yielding to hints of darker berry fruit. On the palate, a silky mouthfeel carries vibrant blue fruits, then sumptuously sweet flavours reminiscent of pastel de nata and apple crumble generously slathered in vanilla cream. The oak – evocative of a fine wine cellar – is present, yet remarkably never intrusive. The finish is wonderfully warm, enveloping, and lingering, with a delightful return to those initial floral notes. Now, if only we had that time machine…
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