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"Today marks a seminal moment in The Balvenie’s history as we unveil our oldest whisky, ever. The Balvenie Eighty-Eight-Year-Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky is presented alongside two further exceptional and storied Limited Editions in The 1931 Collection: a Fifteen-Year-Old, made from 100% Home Grown and Home Malted Barley, and a Twelve-Year-Old, made from 100% Home Malted Barley.
"One morning in 2019 I sampled a whisky that had reached perfection. Exceptional in both substance and significance, I quietly instructed for it to be bottled and locked away for safekeeping.
"Distilled by The Balvenie’s craftspeople in 1931 and filled into a refill sherry butt sourced from Jerez, it then lay silently in our warehouse for a staggering eighty-eight years. It is both inspiring and humbling to be the Malt Master to bring this precious liquid to the world."
Kelsey McKechnie, Malt Master, The Balvenie
1931 was a defining year for The Balvenie. At a time when the wider whisky industry was in turmoil, The Balvenie was looking to the future with quiet resolve. This year marked the opening of its newly constructed Home Malt Floor, an act which charted a path to its continued success: the genesis for the whisky’s consistently sweet, honeyed character, a catalyst for small, interesting and innovative releases, and a home for the Balvenie’s Malting Team to perfect their timeless craft. The daily rhythm of hand-crafting The Balvenie’s signature spirit was alive.
Hand-written archives show that on 5th March 1931, a whisky was filled into a European oak sherry butt sourced from Jerez in Spain, cask #239. This liquid lay silently in the distillery’s warehouse for a remarkable eighty-eight years, tended to by generations of The Balvenie’s craftspeople under the watchful eye of a lineage of great Malt Masters. In 2019, The Balvenie’s current Malt Master, Kelsey McKechnie, intuitively recognised that it had come of age. Just seventeen bottles of the Eighty-Eight-Year-Old whisky exist.
Describing the whisky as “a sensorial experience evoking the serene silence of evergreen woods”, Malt Master Kelsey McKechnie believes that the Eighty-Eight-Year-Old transcends categorisation to become an entity in its own right; a time capsule that captures the dawn of The Balvenie’s spirit. While noting an ever-present Balvenie character, on the nose, she identifies, ‘A breath of Balvenie. Honey, subtle mint leaf and buttery fudge flow into a whisper of light earthiness, intwined with floral heather tones, damp bracken and worn leather. Aromas carrying the quiet elegance of years of maturation.” Of the taste, she continues, “Rich aromatic oak flows into creamy toffee, velvety honey and a warming spice, slowly revealing deep heather and woodland ferns. A quiet reward of years of persistence and patience.” The finish is long and drying.
Charles Metcalfe, Global Ambassador, The Balvenie, commented, “Once in a while, a whisky comes along that is so remarkable it has the potential to shape the future of Scotch. It is a true testament to our craftsmen and women, our continuing careful family guardianship and The Balvenie’s reverence for its product in treating each cask as meticulously as the next, that this cask has not only survived but excelled in its very being.”
THE 1931 COLLECTION
From its earliest days, The Balvenie Distillery began practicing what is known today as the Five Rare Crafts: home-grown barley, traditional floor maltings, coopering, the art of the coppersmiths, and the intuitive role of the Malt Master. These core skills became the bedrock of a legacy that has stood the test of time to guide The Balvenie’s practice to this day.
This continuing artistry enabled Malt Master Kelsey McKechnie, inspired by the once-in-a-lifetime eighty-eight-year-old whisky, to create two further Limited Editions expressions. A Twelve-Year-Old and a Fifteen-Year-Old have been hand-crafted in the same spirit for many more consumers of The Balvenie to experience and enjoy.
The 1931 Collection Twelve-Year-Old is made using similar techniques, from malt to cask, as the Eighty-Eight-Year-Old. Made from100% Home Malted Barley and matured in American oak casks, the Limited-Edition is then finished in ex-Sherry Bodega European oak butts from Jerez, the same region in Spain as the original cask #239. The result is a rare expression of The Balvenie’s classic house style; beautifully balanced and refined, with layers of honey and delicate spice revealing a rich, velvety and smooth finish.
The final expression in the 1931 Collection is a Limited Edition Fifteen-Year-Old-Whisky. This special release is made from 100% Home Grown and Home Malted Barley. As with the Twelve-Year-Old, this liquid was initially matured in American oak casks before being finished in ex-Sherry Bodega European oak butts from Jerez. The Fifteen-Year Old’s velvety, rich, honeyed notes flow into a sweet and lingering finish, once again providing a balanced and refined adaptation of The Balvenie’s signature style.
ARTIST DANIEL ARSHAM’S INTERPRETATION
To celebrate The 1931 Collection, The Balvenie has embarked on a landmark collaboration with Daniel Arsham, an artist whose work combines structural experiment with historical enquiry. Arsham has designed a sculptural form for the Eighty-Eight-Year-Old liquid, presented in his signature style as a time worn relic. Crafted from eight flowing layers, one for each decade, the fascia is made with hand-patinated bronze that mirrors the textures and colours found across the distillery and the oxidation that happens naturally on copper over time. The reverse is made from eighty-eight symbolic layers of oak. At the centre is a copper disc crafted from a decommissioned distillery still, a physical piece of The Balvenie’s history embedded within the sculpture.
Daniel Arsham, artist, said of the collaboration, “At The Balvenie, I encountered a spirit that has been carefully shaped by generations of people who have protected and refined their craft, while remaining deeply connected to their origins. Much of my work explores time, material transformation and the histories that objects carry. This collaboration has brought these themes together naturally; I wanted to create something that feels both ancient and contemporary, to make the passage of time tangible.”
The Eighty-Eight-Year-Old whisky is housed in a hand-blown crystal decanter, reserved for The Balvenie’s most precious liquids. Featuring ‘The Balvenie Ball’, inspired by the unique shape of the distillery’s copper stills, the decanter sits as though uncovered at the centre of Arsham’s relic, engraved with 18ct gold gilding and polished to perfection.
Arsham’s presentation of the 1931 Collection Twelve-Year-Old and Fifteen-Year-Old is intrinsically connected to the Eighty-Eight-Year-Old’s sculpture. On the heavily debossed and tactile exterior of the packaging, a green hue emerges from a copper tone, echoing the Verdigris patina of the sculpture’s eight layers. Inside reveals a textured copper-coloured substrate, redolent of the material language of the distillery.
A GLOBAL DEBUT
The Balvenie is proud to partner with Frieze Seoul to debut The 1931 Collection through an immersive, sensorial performance, directed by Daniel Arsham. Across a barley grain canvas inspired by The Balvenie’s Home Malting Floor, dancers move through a series of eight fluid, meditative acts, choreographed by Sukyung Yoo. On occasion, Arsham will join the performers, drawing on his own practice of moving meditation. Movements will be accompanied by a bespoke soundscape composed using ambient sounds from The Balvenie distillery. Performances will take place at Space S50, Seongdong-gu in Seoul, as part of the Official Frieze Week programme.
The Balvenie 1931 Collection Eighty-Eight-Year-Old is available to private clients and collectors. The Collection’s Fifteen-Year-Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky is available from September, exclusively through global travel retail outlets, while the 1931 Collection Twelve-Year-Old Single Malt Scotch Whisky is available in selected markets.