The history of the Glen Grant distillery is a story of innovation. James Grant (nephew of the founder John Grant and known affectionately as The Major) inherited the distillery in 1872, and began revolutionising whisky production with the introduction of water cooling purifiers and elongated stills, to capture finer spirits. Something of a Victorian adventurer, The Major was also a keen botanist and plant collector, resulting in a garden at Glen Grant which is the greatest of any distillery.
For The Visionary, we wanted to reflect The Major’s love of plant collecting and discovery, with a design that expressed the care required to keep something alive for such a long journey. Victorian plant collectors would travel the globe, bringing back specimens in glass vitrines to protect them from the elements; a Glen Grant of 68 years old requires the same attention. There are very few whiskies that can withstand, and improve with that length of aging; The Visionary is, in effect, a perfect specimen.
Glen Grant is famous for its fresh, green notes; the spirit is light and elegant, a result of greater copper contact in the tall stills and purifiers. Copper, in its original unpolished state, is green, and particularly so when it is malachite, a copper mineral that we have inlaid within the base and stopper of the decanter, to reflect the remarkable freshness of this whisky, even after 68 years in cask.