Latest news with #LuminarySeries
South China Morning Post
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
How Scottish whisky brand The Dalmore redefines culture through art and design: its 3rd Luminary Series edition was unveiled at the 2025 Venice Biennale of Architecture, in partnership with V&A Dundee
There's plenty to say about what it means to be cultured in this day and age – one of the few words in our modern vernacular which invites some debate depending on who you ask. Perhaps what comes to mind is less a description and more a feeling not too far off from the first sip of a cool glass of aged and refined whisky – something which feels fresh and evocative, deeply personal and always thought-provoking. For the previously uninitiated such as myself, entry into the world of whisky came naturally thanks to the cultural touchstone that is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, where Scottish whisky brand The Dalmore unveiled the third edition of its Luminary Series last week in partnership with V&A Dundee – Scotland's very first design museum and the first prestigious Victoria & Albert museum outside London. The Dalmore unveiled the third edition of its Luminary Series in partnership with V&A Dundee. Photo: Handout Advertisement Marking a marriage between whisky-making and taste-making, these releases are available exclusively as limited-edition collectibles and one-off versions made for auction. They are presented as luxurious art pieces co-created by the design luminaries of our time. Previous collaborators include legendary Japanese architect Kengo Kuma , who designed the V&A Dundee, and protégé Maurizio Mucciola, along with Melodie Leung of Zaha Hadid Architects , whose portfolio includes Hong Kong's very own Henderson Building. And in keeping with tradition, The Luminary 2025 Edition, The Rare – both whisky and accompanying sculpture – will also be auctioned at Sotheby's, this time in Hong Kong, on Friday, May 16, with all proceeds going to V&A Dundee. The Dalmore event unveiling the third edition of its Luminary Series. Photo: Handout In these capable hands, it's easy to see how The Dalmore aims to cultivate a more cultured world, one drink at a time. In its over 180 years of making whisky in the Scottish highlands, the brand has sought to challenge the conventions of its craft and bring new meaning to that tricky term. While some may call cultured a state of being, others a state of mind, the curated, complex tastes involved in bringing The Dalmore's latest release to life say something else entirely – to be cultured is less a choice and more a mandate to push the boundaries of what we think to be possible in today's climate, to pursue thoughtfulness in everything we do. Ben Dobbin (right), with Maurizio Mucciola and Melodie Leung, The Dalmore's Luminary Series designers in previous years. Photo: Handout That's precisely what Ben Dobbin, this year's luminary designer, had in mind when conceiving and developing the latest chapter of The Dalmore's ambitious arts and design project. Dobbin built his sculpture using the principles of tensegrity, which essentially boils down to finding structure through tension – a delicate balance which applies to many other disciplines beyond architecture, including human anatomy, art history and now, whisky-making. Ben Dobbin's sculpture is built on the principle of tensegrity. Photo: Handout 'Taste and smell are really rooted in some of your earliest memories,' says Dobbin, who grew up around apples and whisky-infused desserts. Unsurprisingly, both played a huge role in formulating the 52-year-old single malt whisky that is the 2025 Edition of The Rare. It is the oldest of the brand's whiskies currently available for purchase and the oldest so far in the Luminary Series, which houses a blend of tastes and smells made possible only by its time spent maturing in exceptionally rare casks. The aroma of warm spices like vanilla and cinnamon, which have become The Dalmore's signature, opens up to deeper tasting notes of baked brioche, apricots and apples. The strictly limited-edition collectible version of the whisky, aged 17 years but no less refined in its palette, offers a hint at what this singular whisky has to offer for non-auction prices.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
You Don't Need The Dalmore's New 52-Year-Old Scotch. Drink This New 17-Year Instead
Scottish whisky maker The Dalmore's new 52-year-old single malt has competition, and it's coming from inside the distillery. For the 2025 Luminary Series, The Dalmore is releasing two calvados-finished single malts, and one is affordable and delicious. First, a word on the unaffordable collector's liquid: Dalmore Luminary 2025 Edition 'The Rare' is a 52-year-old single malt whisky finished in a number of incredible casks: 80s calvados, 40s port, 40-year-old Pedro Ximénez sherry, and tawny port and Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine casks. That's what's inside the decanter. As for the outside, the Dalmore Luminary 'The Rare' is presented in what could loosely be called a showpiece—an architectural work of bronze waves and rods that resembles an art deco serving tray extruded through a Dalí painting. If this sounds more like an art installation than a whisky, your instincts aren't failing you. Luminary is a release in partnership with V&A Dundee—Scotland's design museum—and artist Ben Dobbin, who designed the asymmetric sculpture. This art bottle is meant to bring home big bucks. The Dalmore is among Scotland's most prestigious names, particularly within the world of heavily sherried malts. Its bottles in these extreme age ranges have gone for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's not necessarily the case that the 2025 Luminary will hit that range when it's auctioned off, but even conservative prices for bottles like this tend to register $50,000 or makes the whisky more likely to bring in huge cash (aside from the charitable context) is that this whisky is one of a kind—well, two of a kind. The Dalmore only created two of these decanters. One is currently in Hong Kong, where an auction will be held by Sotheby's Hong Kong, closing May 16. That auction will determine the worth of the first bottle, but the second will continue to remain nominally 'priceless' because it exists only to be stashed away like Indiana Jones' Ark of the Covenant, interred in Dalmore's archives, being examined by 'top men' and probably never seeing the light of day until another charitable occasion calls for it to be offered why should the average person care? Well, normally we shouldn't if we're trying to avoid FOMO, but with the Luminary series, The Dalmore has created a secondary tier. Dalmore Luminary No. 3 is a 17-year-old single malt 'inspired' by the 2025 Edition of Luminary. While the 52-year-old takes the spotlight in Hong Kong, the 17-year whisky is actually debuting this week in Venice at the Venice Biennale. Luminary No. 3 is a more affordable price point—the liquid is younger, and there are 20,000 bottles of it for the world market—but the price is an approachable $400. The whisky follows a similar aging trajectory, resting in a total of seven cask types, including Calvados, red wine, and sherry. As muddy as you might expect a seven-casked whisky to be on the palate, this whisky really surprises. On the nose, big juicy berry notes jump out. On the palate, honey cake, sticky toffee, and currant linger. It's somehow a text book example of The Dalmore's rich sherry-finished style (mouth coating, lush, syrupy) while being very much unlike any Dalmore I've tried in recent years (restrained on the chocolate and coffee notes and particularly fruit forward). Flavors less common to The Dalmore range—orange candy, black cherry, pie filling— are really pronounced, like broad splashes of bold primary colors over a caramel is, I'm sorry to tell you, illuminated with unexpected flavors, and there's an art-gallery-like joy in just sitting with it for a few moments. I'm very much of the opinion that some whiskeys can be 'over thought,' and distillers the world over will reluctantly admit that not every liquid they sell is meant for poetic tasting notes. But I wish I'd gotten to enjoy more time (and ounces) with this release before it was gone. It's a pleasing and engaging drinking experience that I can't recommend enough for lovers of 'serious whisky.' And if that's what Luminary No. 3 did to my brain, I can only imagine what the 52-year–old liquid would do.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Dalmore Just Dropped a Rare Duo of 17-Year-Old and 52-Year-Old Whiskey
Luxury scotch brand the Dalmore just unveiled two new whiskies as part of its ongoing Luminary Series. One is an ultra-aged 52-year-old single malt, a bottle of which will only be available to purchase at auction. The good news is that the other whisky is a 17-year-old single malt that is even better than that rarity and is being released in a run of 20,000 bottles globally. The Dalmore is a Highland distillery that was founded in 1839 and is currently owned by Whyte & Mackay, a Scottish company that also owns Jura, Tamnavulin, and Fettercairn (which launches here in the U.S. later this month). The distillery, led by master distiller Richard Paterson OBE (nicknamed the Nose), is known for its portfolio of high-end single malts that are often finished in sherry, port, and other fortified wine casks. This is the third edition of the Luminary Series, which launched in 2023 as a collaboration with V&A Dundee, the well-known design museum in Scotland. Each edition has gotten progressively older—the first consisted of whiskies aged for 48 and 15 years, the second of whiskies aged 49 and 16 years, and No. 3, as mentioned before, is a pair of whiskies aged for 52 and 17 years. More from Robb Report Inside the Aviator, a $7.5 Million Flight-Inspired Home on a Rugged Mountaintop High Above Malibu Giorgio Armani Designed This New 236-Foot Megayacht, and It Just Hit the Water The Obamas' Former Martha's Vineyard Getaway Hits the Market for $39 Million The Dalmore Luminary 2025 Edition – The Rare is the name of the 52-year-old, and it was aged in a wide variety of casks before bottling. The whisky was initially matured in an ex-bourbon barrel before being transferred to a vintage 1980 calvados cask (a type of French apple brandy). This was something of a risk, because according to the distillery that was before that type of cask was approved by the Scotch Whisky Association in 2019 (they likely had a clue this change was coming). After that it went into the following casks for finishing before bottling—1940 Colheita port, tawny port, 40-year-old Pedro Ximénez sherry, and Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine. Only two decanters designed by architect and designer Ben Dobbin were produced, and both come inside a unique bronze sculpture. One will be on display at the distillery, the other will be up for auction at Sotheby's until May 16, with all of the proceeds going to benefit V&A Dundee. We were lucky enough to sample this rare whisky, and notes of ripe tropical fruit lead the way followed by vanilla, maple, dark chocolate, and brown sugar flavors. The second whisky is called the Dalmore Luminary No.3–2025 Edition – The Collectible. It's a 17-year-old single malt that was initially aged in ex-bourbon barrels before being finished in a slightly different assemblage of casks—calvados, vintage calvados (1989 and 1999), Matusalem sherry, Apostoles sherry, red wine from Bordeaux and Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and ex-bourbon. This is a superb whisky and a peak expression of Dalmore, arguably the superior whisky of the two with notes of cotton candy, cherry, grape, butterscotch, and a variety of baking spices. This whisky, as mentioned before, is much more widely available with 20,000 bottles being released in key markets throughout the world (SRP $400). And if you're looking to sample some other Dalmore expressions, ranging from the affordable 12-year-old to the expensive 45-year-old, you can purchase them at ReserveBar now. Best of Robb Report Why a Heritage Turkey Is the Best Thanksgiving Bird—and How to Get One 9 Stellar West Coast Pinot Noirs to Drink Right Now The 10 Best Wines to Pair With Steak, From Cabernet to Malbec Click here to read the full article.
