Kindred Spirits
November 2009
 
The Glenrothes: John Ramsay’s Legacy
Dear Lawrence

In July, we announced that, after forty-three years making Scotch Whisky, John Ramsay, who has been involved with the crafting of The Glenrothes Single Malt since the mid 1990s, and whose signature has adorned so many Glenrothes labels over the years, was set to retire.

   
To mark this, we asked John if he would produce his ‘final’ variant of The Glenrothes: one that he would be happy to sign off on as a farewell. His ‘Legacy’ if you like.

Happily he agreed and now 3 months later we are able to offer to you this exceptional release – The Glenrothes: John Ramsay, available to purchase from the website shop.

In John’s own words he describes how he created this, his last product.

“I called for samples from forty-nine different hand-picked casks and then from this total narrowed the selection to fourteen Hogsheads and six Butts. This volume was still way in excess of what we required but I felt it necessary to go with this wide variety in order to get the correct balance and complexity of flavours.

The casks were all made from American Oak (Quercus Alba): all second-fill sherry casks. They were a mix from the following vintage years: 1973, 1978, 1979, 1982, 1985, 1986 and 1987.

The natural colour was dark and golden and the initial married strength 52.6% alcohol by volume. My intention was to take the alcohol strength down prior to bottling as I wanted to deliver a whisky that can be consumed with no additional water to the glass and no alcohol burn. To achieve this I selected some recently emptied American oak sherry casks and vatted the married whisky back into them. Unusually I did this without the addition of water.

The next stage was then to select only two of these ‘racked’ casks: those showing the greatest enhancement and slowly add water over several weeks until the strength reduction and colour clarity measures we were looking for had been met.

The result has been to deliver a whisky, without chill filtering, at a strength of 46.7% abv that still leaves the whisky bright and vibrant to the eye.

Now bottled there are just 1400 bottles of this product each numbered and sold with a booklet that I have signed myself. To honour this product, we have produced a special bottle: still in keeping with the Sample Room bottle shape that has been used since 1994, but with the addition of my signature, etched in the glass. The oak frame has a Glenrothes shaped window.”

John’s tasting notes read:

Appearance: Medium golden, clear and bright
Bouquet: Rich, spicy, blood orange and vanilla
Palate: Rich, full flavour, balanced oak and fruit, mango
Finish: Long, mature and tactile, unmistakably American oak

Enjoy,