The $200,000 Johnnie Walker Diamond Jubilee whisky is ‘truly remarkable’
- From: The Australian
- September 13, 2014
The “bottle” designed for this $200,000 whisky is a diamond-shaped Baccarat crystal decanter collared in hand-engraved Britannia silver and studded with a half-carat diamond. Photo: Chris McKeen Source: News Corp Australia
IT’S almost unforgivably rude, I know, to turn to a new acquaintance at a black-tie dinner and inquire, however politely, if they are going to leave their drink untouched.
“I don’t really drink much whisky,” the lady explains. “I’m saving myself for the tasting.” Saving herself means abandoning her half-nip of The John Walker, an extraordinary spirit that retails at $4500 a bottle. There were only 330 bottles made and it seems much worse manners to allow any of it to be thrown away.
The John Walker would be the highlight of most whisky drinkers’ lives — a citrus, vanilla, honeyed masterpiece — but tonight, astonishingly, it is playing a supporting role. Following cameos from the King George V, a very approachable $600 a bottle, and the John Walker & Sons Odyssey, just under $2000, it accompanies the final course of a dinner at the Sydney Opera House to celebrate the opening — and sharing — of a bottle of Johnnie Walker’s Diamond Jubilee whisky.
Conceived to mark the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s reign, the Diamond Jubilee is the ultimate expression of the whisky blender’s craft. It is also a reminder that a company the size of Johnnie Walker still treasures the traditional skills we sometimes consider the preserve of boutique producers. First, it had to find usable stock of whisky distilled in 1952, the year of the Queen’s accession to the throne. After scouring its inventory of seven million barrels, it found just three that were good enough. By happy accident, to save money the whisky had been stored in tired old barrels after the war. Had it been put into new wood, the oak would have overpowered its flavours over the decades.
After master blender Jim Beveridge determined the optimum proportions of grain and malt whiskies, special casks were hand-built from oak harvested from the Queen’s Sandringham estate, and the spirits were allowed to mingle at the Royal Lochnagar Distillery on the edge of her lands in Balmoral, in Aberdeenshire. Just 60 bottles were filled, if bottle is the right word for this diamond-shaped Baccarat crystal decanter, collared in hand-engraved Britannia silver and studded with a half-carat diamond.
By now astute readers will have worked out this is not going to be a cheap drink, and they’d be right. The first bottle was given to the Queen; another is on a plinth in front of us; the other 58 are for sale at a robust $200,000 each, generating profits of almost $2 million for the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust, a charity dedicated to the preservation of rare craft and conservation skills.
Johnnie Walker’s global brand ambassador, Jonathan Driver, has lived with this project since its inception and has delivered each of the bottles sold (he’s too discreet to say how many, but does reveal one buyer has bought more than one). He has crossed the world with tiny samples, reasoning that you might be entitled to a taste before handing over the cash.
The choice of Sydney, and the Opera House, as venue pays tribute to history, says Driver. “This was our first export market, in 1880,” he says. “And this is where Her Majesty landed when she came on her first visit in 1954.” Tonight’s is the only bottle the company will ever open.
As he speaks, the world’s most nervous-looking waiters begin to file in. The whisky has been carried with white-gloved care and poured into tasting glasses, which are distributed once everyone’s safely sitting down. Driver leads the nosing, finding aromas reminiscent of an old church, then invites us to sip, “really slowly”.
The whisky is truly remarkable: delicate and powerful at the same time, with a freshness and light fruit character that defies its age. There are hints of wood, and distant smokiness, but above all is the sensation of elegant structure and length, a complex persistence of flavour that stays long in the mouth and haunts the empty glasses, a number of which are discreetly pocketed by the guests. Across the room, my dinner companion catches my eye and shakes her head. “Not a chance,” she says.
