Earlier this month the Glen Grant unveiled Devotion, its oldest single malt to date. A sole bottle of the 70-year-old Scotch is currently on auction at Sotheby’s, where it’s expected to retrieve more than $100,000 by the time the hammer drops.
In case there were any doubts, this is a stunning sherry-imbued Scotch, rich and robust, from one of the industry’s most storied distilleries; crafted by one of its most iconic distillers, Dennis Malcolm. And yet when you visit the brand’s dedicated website for the release, description of the liquid itself arrives after that of the decanter and “mesmerizing gem-shaped objet d’art” in which it sits.
This prioritization isn’t a lark. In the world of ultra high-end collectible spirits, bottle design has assumed top-billing. And with bottles regularly fetching six-figures and up from a global cabal of frenzied collectors, it’s an art form that now doubles as its very own cottage industry.
Meet The Masters
Brodie Nairn has played an outsized role in this evolution. The hot glass master — who blows molten material, slowly shaping and molding it into its final form — co-founded and runs a studio in the Scottish highlands called Glasstorm. Since 2018, he and his team have crafted the ornate — often elaborate — housing for some of the scotch category’s most memorable one-offs: a striated 50-year-old Glenlivet; a 1957 vintage of Black Bowmore, incorporating Islay surf into its crenulated facade; the Art Deco rendering of an impossibly rare Macallan juice, bottled specifically to commemorate
