The Highland single malt has been busy recently, partnering with a world-famous photographer and a renowned Scottish hotel to raise its profile – and it deserves the attention
Anyone who has seen footage of Tiger Woods, Seve Ballesteros or Jack Nicklaus winning the Open Championship on the St Andrews Links golf course will recognise the Rusacks St Andrews Hotel, the Scottish Gothic building on the right as they play the 18th hole. The view the other way – across the course and to the sea – is pretty special too, especially now the hotel has a new whisky bar. Marine & Lawn Hotels has partnered with the American distillery group Brown-Forman to create the members’ club feel of Room 116. But the emphasis is not on the most famous of its products, a certain Tennessee whiskey in a square bottle, but single malts from further up the east coast of Scotland, on the Moray Firth – Benriach, Glenglassaugh and The Glendronach.
The Glendronach 12YO
Brummell recommends Benriach’s The Smoky Twelve; Glenglassaugh’s Sandend edition; and anything by The Glendronach. Its malts age in sherry casks, like so many, but rather than only using oloroso to give oomph to the spicy side of the whisky, it uses Pedro Ximénez casks too. PX is an intensely sweet style of sherry, and it certainly rubs off on The Glendronach. The 12YO gives you gingerbread, wild blackberries and sultanas; the 15YO adds dark chocolate, bitter orange, maraschino cherries and cooked figs to the mix; and the 18YO bakes an intense, rich cake out of all those flavours. If you can get hold of a dram of the limited-edition 29YO Batch 12 Grandeur, you will feel like you’re drinking Seve’s 1984 Open-winning putt – smooth but complex and surprising.
The Glendronach is certainly not one of the world-famous Highland single malts, but it is likely to be seen more widely, now that the fussy and fusty old packaging has been refreshed and Scottish-born photographer and filmmaker Rankin has added his own creative flair to the presentation of the brand. In a film which cuts very cleverly between the liquid flow of whisky and the movement of flamenco dancer Rocio Dusmet Orellana (a nod to the Jerez connection) as she swirls around the distillery, there’s a particularly good bit where she is dancing on the surface of the Dronach Burn. You can see the film here.
glendronachdistillery.com; marineandlawn.com/rusacksstandrews
