GLENFIDDICH LAUNCHES TIME RELATED COLLECTION

 GLENFIDDICH AND THE TIME MACHINE

Glenfiddich Rare Time Re:Imagined Whisky Collection's Stunning Debut

In the four seasonal circles of life, spring is considered the time to “reset”. The long dark days of winter have finally gone and as the chilly season fades away, the warm and revitalising gift that is spring is welcomed. At its very essence, spring is a season of the real three Rs: Renewal, Refreshment & Restoration. The three R’s are at the heart of what iconic Scotch producer Glenfiddich expresses with the launch of its Time Re:Imagined collection.

This remarkable collection of aged and exclusive single malt whiskies represents the ultimate expression of time and is the pinnacle of Glenfiddich’s signature distillery output shaped by the steady passing of time and is presented in a unique casing of bespoke artwork. Since the 1960s, only three Glenfiddich Malt Masters have been at the helm of this project, overseeing the development of these casks.

Glenfiddich’s release comprises three luxury single malts, themed around time. The Time Re:Imagined collection includes 30-year-old, 40-year-old and 50-year-old expressions, priced at £900, 3,500 and 35,000 respectively. Effortlessly bridging the past with the present, Time Reimagined boasts a pool of truly aged whiskies designed to be enjoyed for many more to come.

The whiskies have been matured in Speyside. Each one is presented in packaging designed to interpret different concepts of time.

In whisky production, it is the responsibility of malt masters to find the delicate balance between the taste of the whisky and the intensity of the oak cask. But they don’t always acknowledge how each cask, each bottle, is absolutely unique because of the time it has spent maturing, which is their sole preserve.

Both nature and time play huge roles in making whisky taste like it does… Glenfiddich’s Time Re:Imagined pays homage to this process and the exquisite liquid it helps to create.

THE THIRTY-YEAR-OLD: SUSPENDED TIME

The youngest expression is Glenfiddich 30-Year-Old Suspended Time (43% ABV, £930/70cl). It depicts the moment when the master distiller decides the whisky is ready to be bottled, the point at which maturation is suspended. 

Time is often believed to be an irrefutable force. The seconds, minutes, and hours are fleeting figures of a clockface, slipping steadily away. but in the hands of a maverick, time stands still. This is something their malt master understands implicitly. Thirty years ago, he laid down the spirit to create an exemplary single malt. After three decades of patient maturation, the decisive moment arrived. Glenfiddich 30 is the pinnacle of this process. more than simply a superlative liquid, it is forethought, expectation and anticipation embodied. Three decades, captured. Time stilled, forever. Arrested, and arresting. An experience to savour. Thirty years of a maverick mindset, suspended in time.

Graphic and expressive, Glenfiddich 30-Year-Old’s outer packaging is the capsule which encases the moment of maturation, in all its splendour. An intricate concept, the design evokes the image of moving ribbons, each one frozen in time to form elegant cut-out windows, revealing the regal decanter inside. The design’s dynamic lines and complex interwoven structure create the illusion that the bottle is suspended, effortlessly, in mid-air.

Official Tasting Notes:

Colour: Rich bronze

Nose: An exquisitely structured balance of hearty oak married with sweet, subtle sherry notes.

Taste: Deep, woody flavours interlaced with delicate floral accents, in a complex combination.

Finish: Warm, honeyed and exceptionally long-lasting. 

                 

THE FORTY-YEAR-OLD: CUMULATIVE TIME

Time, An Abstract Entity, Accumulates In Layers

Glenfiddich 40-Year-Old Cumulative Time (44.6% ABV, £3,500/70cl) is inspired by the process of remnant vatting.

It is visible in a rocky valley’s many solid strata; laid down over millennia, worn smooth by wind and rain, and with layers comes complexity. Which is why Glenfiddich 40 is so much more than an exemplary single malt. This rare single malt is made through remnant vatting, a pioneering process in which our malt master carries one batch over, time and again, and marries it with the casks selected for each subsequent release. Cask after cask, season after season, it absorbs the evolving flavours of the passing years. Melding the many liquid layers of its four-decade formulation to create an extraordinary expression. It is time, age, experience accumulated. Physical. Tangible. Layer upon layer of maverick thinking made manifest.

Just as Glenfiddich 40 is composed through the accumulation of time, so too is the packaging which houses it - a bold, maverick take on a geological metamorphosis.

The 40-year-old crystal decanter is housed in a unique, sculptural jesmonite container. Dramatic grooves carved into this innovative stone-like material exposes the intertwining veins which flow through it, from the shining green glass of our iconic 12-year-old bottle to the gleaming copper of the stills in which this single malt was masterfully distilled.

Official Tasting Notes

Colour: Dark mahogany

Nose: A deeply layered expression of dried fruits, dark chocolate, roasted coffee and ripe black cherries. Completed with subtle waves of gentle wood smoke, polished leather and cloves.

Taste: A luxuriously full and silky smooth taste, with memories of past releases in every nuanced note. Evolving from deep dried fruit notes to rich fruitcake, dates, raisins and stewed apples, before giving way to dry oaky notes, with subtle hints of bitter chocolate and peat.

Finish: Complex, memorable, and exquisitely long-lasting

                 

THE FIFTY-YEAR-OLD: SIMULTANEOUS TIME

The rarest expression is Glenfiddich 50-Year-Old Simultaneous Time (43.8% ABV, £35,000/70cl). The Glenfiddich 50-Year-Old defines a deeper meaning of a fifty-year-old whisky. Only when the whisky reaches 21 years old, is it considered worthy to be suitable for further ageing. Only three casks out of thousands reached fifty years. Three malt masters have overseen the maturation of this whisky, over the past five decades.

As the years accumulated in a cask increase, so does the rarity of the whisky inside. This is the inextricable link between liquid and time. Glenfiddich 50 Year Old is not just another rare whisky, it is a maverick statement. Fifty years experienced not chronologically, but all at once.

Glenfiddich has come to see time as chronological, narrative, sequential. In a maverick aged whisky all the time is experienced simultaneously - fifty years encapsulated in all its richness and detail without editing.

It is a blend of whiskies from three different American oak casks matured in the same warehouse, blended and then finished in American oak for two years. This creates a complex whisky with lingering sweetness on the palate, that ‘softens into deep, silky smooth oak tannin and sun-dried vanilla’. Only 220 bottles have been produced.

Every decanter of Glenfiddich Fifty Year Old is a hand-blown, bespoke piece. The three-sided decanter form is iconic of Glenfiddich. The form is made of two opposing triangles - one at the foot and one at the shoulder. The dramatic transition between these two forms naturally reveals the eponymous valley as an elegant facet on each of these three sides. The stopper is milled precisely from aluminium, providing a cool counterpoint to the traditions of hand-blown crystal.

The data cloud, 50 years of climatic data. Air pressure, temperature and humidity… dramatically affect whisky maturing in a cask.

The structure of this packaging takes fifty years of climatic data gathered in the precise Scottish location where the whisky was aged at Glenfiddich’s Dufftown Distillery. Data artist, Manuel Jimènez Garcìa, then uses this raw information to create a bespoke 3-D structure, bringing life to every second, of every day, of every month of those fifty years. Deconstructing. Manipulating. Rebuilding.

By decrypting the meteorological data into numerical information, a custom-built algorithm is used to generate a physical language. This language is then used to build the packaging’s disruptive form. Much like the rare nature of the whisky encased inside, the unique data can never be re-crafted. The bold structure simultaneously surrounds the liquid with fifty years of elemental ebb and flow - the very conditions that made it.

Glenfiddich Time Re:Imagined is the latest release from distiller William Grant & Sons, owned by the Gordon family. Earlier in the summer of 2022 it unveiled the House of Hazelwood collection of rare whiskies, drawn from stocks laid down for almost a century and named after the family home in Dufftown.

Official Tasting Notes:

Colour: Antique gold

Nose: Rich orange peel and clementine meet complex notes of Madeira cake and muscovado sugar. Maturing over time into the dewy petrichor of a Dufftown morning, mingling with flowering geranium.

Taste: A lingering sweetness softens into deep, silky smooth oak tannin and sun-dried vanilla.

Finish: Oaky, sweet and incredibly long-lasting.