– “Would you care for a little flower in your whisky, madam?”
– “Excuse me, did I hear that right? Flour in my whisky?”
– “Yes, we have a delightful new addition to our collection: an 18 years old Scotch whisky from Glenmorangie with hints of honeysuckle, sweet pea, jasmine and geranium entwined with delectable dried fruits and luscious honey. It’s compared to a vast display of blossoms bursting open and dancing on your tongue with each sip.”
– “Why are you still talking? Bring me that whisky!”
While this conversation is slightly absurd, you’d be hard-pressed to not find a floral or sweet whisky in this day and age. From Jack Daniel’s honey whisky to the caramel-infused bourbons of Kentucky, there are uniquely-flavored spirits everywhere. You’d likely be quickly overwhelmed with the selection if your wallet only allows for one purchase. But what sets Glenmorangie’s whiskies apart from the others is its unique process of extracting those heavenly flavors!
Boasting the tallest stills in Scotland isn’t just for the sole purpose of being a roadside tourist pit stop to take pictures of. No, this one-of-a-kind distilling process allows for only the lightest and purest vapors to reach the tops of those stills resulting in a truly unique and flavorful experience. But this is not all! The spirits are then aged in bourbon casks for 15 years and then a portion is transferred to age in Oloroso sherry casks for a further three more years. Finally, at the magical number 18, they’re reunited and lovingly merged to beget the Glenmorangie 18 Years Old.
This year, to further bring the beloved 18YO expression to life, Glenmorangie joined forces with haute-couture florist and boundary breaking botanical sculptor, Azuma Makoto for a project partnership. After carefully sipping the single malt and allowing each molecule to penetrate the senses, Azuma was inspired to create a unique botanical sculpture, appropriately titled Dancing Flowers of Glenmorangie which featured flowers Azuma had tasted upon the initial sips, as well as blossoms from around the world and personify them in a different sense. In fact two senses: sight and smell. The display was truly a one-of-a-kind moving creation designed inside his Tokyo-based studio boasting 100 different blooms.
Being an organic display unfortunately means that we can no longer witness it in-person. Fortunately though, to give us all a taste of Azuma’s arrangement, Glenmorangie is using Azuma’s sculpture as the label and box of their 18 Years scotch, and bring this fun collaboration into our homes and favorite speakeasies.
Check out their website for more information: https://www.glenmorangie.com/
And don’t forget to see what Azuma is doing next here: https://azumamakoto.com/
