Compass Box This is Not a Luxury Whisky (70cl, 53.1%) ***sold***
Inspired by René Magritte's 1929 surrealist painting Ceci n'est pas une pipe, this limited release was bottled in July 2015. Challenging people's perceptions of what is and "isn't a luxury whisky," this was designed to be consumed rather than collected and gives a time sensitive-ish best before date of 3027.
Transparency: 79% Glen Ord, first-fill sherrybutt, 10.1% Strathclyde, refill American oak hogshead, 6.9% Girvan, refill American oak hogshead, 4% Caol Ila, refill American oak hogshead, One of 4992 bottles.
Despite brands like Ballantine’s, Johnnie Walker and Chivas Regal remaining the best-selling Scotch whisky brands in the world, the blended Scotch category played second fiddle to the more fashionable single malt market in the second half of the 20th century. This remains largely true today, however in recent decades the perception of the blend has improved. The company at the forefront of this is Compass Box, founded in 2000 by John Glaser, a former marketing director for the Johnnie Walker brand. Their core range consists of The Spice Tree, The Peat Monster, Story of the Spaniard, Oak Cross and Hedonism blends, and they regularly produce limited editions as well. The company prides itself on its boundary-pushing approach to its creations, and on occasion, boundary-crossing creations, such as the original Spice Tree in 2005 which was banned by the Scotch Whisky Association for its use of suspended staves in casks. Despite investment from Bacardi in 2015, the company continues to push the envelope and rebel against tradition, most notably in its Scotch Whisky Transparency campaign, launched in 2016 following another disagreement with the SWA, this time about their detailed revealing of the recipes of their whiskies.