Yesterday Highland distillery Glenmorangie released its ninth Private Edition innovation, Glenmorangie Spìos, and outlined plans to boost production capacity with a multi-million-pound still house. Interest firmly piqued, we headed to a M Den in London’s Victoria for a tasting led by Dr Bill Lumsden and Brendan McCarron.
“The more difficult it is, the more people [that] say no, the more I want to do it,” attests Dr Bill Lumsden, director of distilling, whisky creation and whisky stocks, as he peers down the camera lens. He’s addressing journalists in London, Paris and Zurich via a live stream from the brand’s sensory lab in Scotland, accompanied by head of maturing whisky stocks Brendan McCarron. “The story of Glenmorangie Spìos is along those lines.”
Indeed, creating Spìos (Scots Gaelic for ‘spice’; pronounced ‘spee-oss’) was no easy ride. The idea stemmed from conversation with late beer and whisky writer Michael Jackson back in the late 1990s during Dr Lumsden’s tenure as distillery manager – a period when the American rye whiskey category was “almost on life support”.
