LIQUID ASSET

The oldest single malt Scotch ever bottled, Gordon & MacPhail’s latest batch of Glenlivet comes in a fittingly sober decanter and case by David Adjaye

- DAVID RS TAYLOR

When Sir David Adjaye drinks, there are no half measures. ‘One of my uncles is a huge whisky fan in Ghana,’ he tells me via Zoom. ‘West Africans brew all these high-octane things – they call it akpeteshie. Very DIY, but very loved. Whisky feels like something that’s really engaging with the body; I love that fire that goes down you. It makes you feel so alive.’ It seems, then, that far from being a surprise move, the RIBA Royal Gold Medal-winning architect’s newest project – designing the case and decanter for the oldest whisky ever to be freshly bottled – makes complete sense.

In 1940, in Elgin, north-east Scotland, 26 years before Adjaye was born, father-andson whisky team John and George Urquhart were considering the latest batch they had acquired from Glenlivet Distillery. John had worked his way from apprentice to sole owner of Gordon & MacPhail, one of Scotland’s finest bottlers. Their decision to put aside a cask of Glenlivet for 80 years, knowing they would never taste it, took experience, foresight, and a little madness.

Stephen Rankin, director of prestige at Gordon & MacPhail, and fourth-generation member of the Urquhart family, explains that the pair weren’t averse to forging a path: ‘You can release a blend when it’s three years old, but in the 1970s, George released Macallan whisky from 1937, for £4.50 a bottle. It’s worth tens of thousands of pounds today.’