It’s liquid gold. Two tall bottles Glen Grant Whisky frame Robin Coupar, the global brand ambassador of the Scottish elixir. He’s a whisky whisperer. His mission is to persuade people around the world about the glories of single malt Glen Grant Whisky through his master classes.
Since I am early, Coupar zips through his master class at full tilt. I forget to ask him why he does not wear a Scottish kilt and maybe keep a bagpiper ready by his side. Instead he has the Indian partner of the parent company, Aspri Spirits by next to him. He’s keeping a beady eye lest one of the natives runs amok and asks an impertinent question about “whisky wine”.
“Don’t you need to drink it in a cold wet climate?” I ask Coupar. “To feel the burn of the raw spirit warming your insides?”
“My father always takes his whisky with water,” he replies, “Just a splash of water. It opens up the whisky, releases the very complex accents. It’s like walking through a rose garden after a spell of rain.”
Coupar conjures a scenario of ice fed waters that trickle down slowly into the famous distilleries at Speyside in the Scottish highlands through mist and peat filled bogs leaching minerals from the earth along the way. This is why “Scotch” is synonymous with “Whisky”.
Part of the legend is that the Irish monks who travelled to the Crusades learnt the technique of distillation by watching the Arabs alchemists making their perfumes.
Coupar corrects me: “Celtic monks”. The Scots refined the process aided by the unique properties of their water. It was at Rothes, Speyside, a sub-region of the Scottish Highlands that Major Grant laid the foundations of the Glen Grant Whiskey brand in 1840.
“He wore a kilt. He was just about five feet tall. He went around the world promoting his single malt Whisky.” Aside from designing a tall slender still, to refine the whisky with added purifiers, Major Grant was also an ardent plant collector. The botanical garden that he started still survives at Rothes.
In the late-1960s, an Italian connoisseur of Glen Grant Single malt introduced the light coloured whiskey to Italy. It was the age of La Dolce Vita. The Italians loved it. This may explain why today the brand is owned by Gruppo Campari.
As though to underline any doubts I might still have about Glen Grant Single Malt, Coupar tells me: “When I was just a baby with teething problems, my dad would rub a few drops on my gums!”
That’s alright then — “We’ll use Single Malt Glen Grant as a mouthwash!” I think to myself.