IT'S ALL IN THE DETAILS

The world of higher end Scotch whisky, particularly bottlings that are half a century and older, tend to be very expensive in price and very limited in number. There just isn’t a lot of super old spirit out there these days, particularly for higher end brands such as Balvenie. It thus makes sense this distillery’s latest 50-year-old release is a mere dozen released bottles in all.

The new The Balvenie Fifty: Marriage 0962, according to those behind it, is a Scotch single malt whisky that brings together the contents of four 50-year-old or older barrels into one blended bottling. It is said each of these barrels were hand selected from the distillery’s oldest stocks by Balvenie Malt Master David C. Stewart MBE. and bottled at 42.8% ABV.

Imagine coming to work and creating something that you won’t be able to enjoy for another decade: that’s a typical day for a scotch distiller. Now multiply that timeframe several times over, and you can understand why it’s so special that David Stewart was able to select and blend the casks used for this 50 year old whisky—he was around at the time of their birth.