Malt master David Stewart is standing in a small tasting room at the Balvenie’s Dufftown distillery in Speyside, Scotland, holding a few crumpled pieces of paper. Those foolscaps are probably the most labor intensive, top-secret documents he has ever compiled: spreadsheets listing the final 25 whiskies he has created to cap off his 53-year career. With some laid out in several snifters in front to him, he is allowing a few visitors a chance to sample.
“I got quite a surprise, nosing and tasting this one,” Stewart explains, a lowland burr rolling his Rs, upon first finding this rarified, single-cask spirit in the Balvenie archives. “You’re keeping your fingers crossed you might find one worth bottling for the compendium.”
That DCS Compendium is the official name the Balvenie has given to Stewart's final 25 selections, each in its own way an exemplar of the malt master’s craft. The distillery plans to release them slowly—five bottles each year for the next five years—in groups it has christened "chapters." Each grouping of five bottles will provide a distinct perspective on the Balvenie, the Speyside whisky known for its honeyed sweetness. The first chapter, released this year and dubbed "Chapter One: Distillery Style," aims to act as a primer for the brand, using whiskies from 1968 through 2005. Limited to just 50 sets worldwide, it will cost a cool $50,000.
Staggered Release
It won’t include the surprising liquid Stewart holds in his hands, though. That whisky—a dry, citrus-y batch from 2001, matured in a fino sherry cask—will hit shelves in four years as part of the final chapter, "The Malt Master’s Indulgence."This set will allow Stewart to please his whims. (Price is to be announced; expect it to cost at least $50,000.) In the interim, he’ll unveil several quintets of whisky, each with its own different theme."Chapter Two: Influence of Oak," is to be followed by "Chapter Three: Secrets of the Stock Model"and "Chapter Four: Expect the Unexpected."
Each of these ultra-premium compendia will form part of the final tasting statement from the industry’s longest-serving malt master. As one of its most respected figures, Stewart spent the week jetting around the U.K. to promote it. He made a rare podium speech during the DCS Compendium’s splashy launch party at the Wallace Collection in central London before taking a private jet back to the distillery to glad-hand a series of VIPs, including Atlanta-based collector Mahesh Patel, who were invited to learn the story behind Stewart’s five-figure farewell.
Which brings us back to Dufftown, where Stewart continues his preview. Steering the tasting with a few gentle, nudging words and a small jug passing around to cut the spirit (Stewart is a firm believer in opening up flavor with a drop or two of tepid water), he has moved on from that citrus-y whisky from "Chapter Five" and is eying another glass. It forms part of "Expect the Unexpected"(The only thing inauthentic about these groupings is the surfeit of marketing-speak that muddles their titles.)
“Chapter Four, now that was the most difficult,” he says, explaining how he built the collection by exploring the forgotten recesses of the Balvenie’s vaults. Poring over records, he would look for an experimental barrel or two from years past, perhaps one in which he finished some liquid in a different way. Such is the case with the whisky he is eyeballing now in that new snifter. “We’d done an end treatment—something we rarely do—but it gave us a coconut style of Balvenie. But that was just one cask.” He pauses. “To pull together five casks, we probably sample hundreds.”
Attention To Craft
Picture, then, the painstaking process of building that 25- strong assortment, as Stewart sifted through the vast archive of barrels that the Balvenie holds in its vaults. He tasted and tested hundreds, even thousands, to whittle down the selection to barely two dozen, each a single-cask single malt. In other words, each bottle contains whisky that is unblended and taken from a unique barrel.