It’s unlikely many old and rare Scotch whisky releases can claim the Wu-Tang Clan as an inspiration, but the idea of House of Hazelwood’s One For The Next came to director Jonathan Gibson when he was listening to Protect Ya Neck on a training run. He began thinking about the hip-hop crew’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album, of which just one copy was pressed with the intention that it be kept from commercial play until the 22^nd century. How about a whisky collection that will not be complete until many years in the future? 

Given that House of Hazelwood is part of William Grant & Sons and bottles the vast private whisky stocks of the Gordon family (the two lineages became intertwined through marriage in the late 19^th century), Gibson’s fellow directors realised they had the means to create an equivalent. So, £10,000 buys you one of just 25 bottles of 60YO single-grain whisky and a cabinet that seems way too big for it. That’s because more of the same two casks of whisky will be released at 70, 80 and eventually the as yet unprecedented milestones of 90 and 100 years old.

Girvan grain distillery is not, perhaps, the most poetic nexus in a story of generational legacy (despite its location in Burns’s Ayrshire, looking across the sea to Ailsa Craig). A huge contrast to the pagoda roofs and stone warehouses of Grant’s Glenfiddich and Balvenie distilleries in Speyside, it is more Blade Runner than Braveheart – an industrial complex that is (despite a current downturn in the whisky industry) pushing ahead with an expansion that will almost double capacity for what is seen as a rosier long-term future. But it was here in 1964, just a few months after it began production, that the whisky that will complete the One For The Next collection over the next four decades was produced.

Charles Grant Gordon was the pivotal figure in Grant’s 20th-century history. In the 1960s, he established Glenfiddich as the first single malt with a truly worldwide brand following, but certainly didn’t neglect blended whisky. Opening Girvan grain distillery in 1963 meant that Grant’s was no longer reliant on other distillers for that component for its own blends. And, more than that, it gave it something to trade with other companies for single malt… that is why House of Hazelwood has access to such depth and breadth of old stock.

However, Girvan’s whisky (and grain in general) should not be underestimated. Yes, grain whisky is the foot soldier of the whisky industry, often regarded as cannon fodder in blends. These days, it is made from wheat (although, in 1963, Girvan was using American maize, so grain whisky from back then has more of a bourbon character), with fermentation kicked off with some malted barley and distillation in column stills, rather than pot stills like a malt. The result is a clean, sweet profile, but deliberately not full of character – it is supposed to form the canvas in a blend. 

However, after 20 years or more, grain can be magical. And, at 60 years, this Girvan has more miraculous moves than a Shaolin monk. Just as the Wu-Tang album was played to a small group of people to attest to its quality, a selection of guests (including a Brummell correspondent) was asked to taste the first iteration at Hazelwood House. This is the elegant Gordon family home hidden away in Speyside, where private clients such as those purchasing One For The Next are sometimes invited to stay.

It has the sweet, buttery barley-sugar sweetness you might expect but with a remarkable freshness too – a herbaceous greenness, floral complexity, bright popping fruit notes. There is no guarantee that it will improve every decade, and the 100YO bottling is described as an intention rather than an inevitability, but the casks are being given every chance to make it. In the dark of one of the Glenfiddich warehouses near Dufftown, warehouse manager and lead sampler George Carail has picked what he believes is the ideal spot for nurturing the whisky. 

Carail is young enough to hope to be around for the final bottling, but this is expected to be a project that spans generations, including for the buyers. Hence “one for the next”. Series’ of old whisky releases are often presented through a sepia-tinted lens, looking at the past, and this does that but also looks forward. The Grant family member most closely involved in House of Hazelwood is Kirsten Grant Meikle, who worked closely with “Uncle Charlie” until his death, in his 80s, on a business trip to New York in 2013. But her approach to paying tribute to him, and her ancestors, seems to be to follow his example and keep her eye on the future.

Even the way this whisky is presented ties together factual history and future potential. Collectible whiskies often come in boxes so large, they could be confused for furniture. This one really is a drinks cabinet. Faced with the challenge of a container for between one and five bottles, cabinet-maker Paul Hodgkiss has modelled the piece on a roll-top desk, with a tambour door, made of strips of wood on canvas. He rather rashly told House of Hazelwood he’d install time locks so you can only open the cabinet enough to reveal the number of bottles released at any point in the next decades, before asking himself, “What the hell’s a time lock?!” What he came up with were catches with manual settings so the owner can voluntarily set how far the door opens. 

The wood itself connects the owner very physically to House of Hazelwood… it is an elm from the Hazelwood garden, felled by Storm Arwen in 2021. What wasn’t used for this project is chopped up for firewood in the house.

It literally remains to be seen how this highly original project plays out. Purchase is by direct enquiry only, with first refusal on the 70YO 1964 single grain to follow and subsequent releases going to owners of the 60YO, with contractual measures in place in the event of ownership passing down generations, as intended. In the case of the Wu-Tang Clan album, the person who paid $2 million for the only copy was, unfortunately, Martin Shkreli. After his fraud conviction, the DOJ sold the seized asset to a group of NFT bros, who released a five-minute teaser and said they were bringing forward the full release of the album by 88 seconds for every NFT sold. Shkreli has also livestreamed it. The whisky business can also attract flipping and pirating. One For The Next is a concept born with the best of intentions and nurtured by passionate people, so let’s hope the better angels prevail.

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