The Glenlivet’s whisky bends the rules so you can break the code
The Glenlivet: The Code is about to change the game forever.
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Luxury whisky brand, The Glenlivet, is about to change the game when it comes to enjoying a wee dram.
In July, the distillery will release The Glenlivet: The Code (only 2000 will make it to Australia) – a limited edition single malt whisky that comes without any tasting notes.
Instead, consumers are encouraged to try and figure out their own flavour notes and can even enter an online game to help work out the palate puzzle.
To find out more about the ingenious idea, Robb Report Australia sat down with master distiller, Alan Winchester, to learn the method behind the supposed madness.
This isn’t the first time The Glenlivet has presented a whisky without tasting notes or cask information. What has been done differently for The Glenlivet: The Code bottling?
Well, each time we have done it, we have tried to make it distinctly different from the last type. So, it’s more about cask type and what we have done with that to make something slightly different.
Do you think that’s typical of The Glenlivet style?
You’ll always have that fruity, floral and toffee style of The Glenlivet running through it. So, it’s always got that core, but you can play with that to produce the different styles. We even do that in the core range in the sense that we use French Oak, which is European Oak, in the 15-year-old, in the 18-year-old we see American Oak with Spanish Oak, and the 21-year-old goes through an American Oak and ex-Sherry cask.
What should someone trying to ‘unlock the code’ be looking for when tasting The Glenlivet: The Code for the first time?
You would be looking for The Glenlivet style, and you’d be looking at your senses to see if you can find if it’s maybe a wee bit different. On the website we’ve set-up different tastes and different nose profile characteristics that can act as a clue to help people identify how to look at the characters, and the intensity of those characters. We are making the people work for the answers.
Embedded content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTlNVrHZUxU
Have you heard any responses back from people that have tried it that have surprised you?
Well, yes, because what often happens within The Glenlivet team and other distilleries that have the spirit all the time is that your descriptor might be perceptive, in the sense that someone might see fruit and someone else might see jam and when calibrated, it comes together. Someone that might smell different things, their association with it will help – we try to calibrate ourselves to that.
What does a typical day look like at The Glenlivet Distillery?
The distillery is very busy, so there’s a continual production, there’s always somebody there, so it’s running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Tuesdays for example, is a day we sit as a team and look at the previous weeks with spirit production; there’s the suppliers, the biggest raw material is malted barley, so we speak with them. Lately, The Glenlivet has been growing as a distillery, so that’s been a big project for us, and occupies a lot of our time. But the day-to-day business of making whisky is the core of what we do.
When working with coopers or sourcing oak barrels, what do you look for in style or toasting techniques?
We buy from some of the big producers of spirits, we also buy from private cooperages who have sourced used barrels from other distilleries. The 21-year-old Sherry cask matured comes from a cooperage that go to Spain every year and buy Spanish shipping butts, which were the containers that were used to transport sherry from Spain to the United Kingdom. When the Sherry containers were empty, the containers went to the whisky industry.
The American barrels used to be deconstructed, like a flat pack and were sent to Scotland where we would re-build them, and place two new ends into them to make them hogsheads.
But nowadays we take them in their whole state to the distillery to be filled. Flattening barrels used to be common until shipping rates dropped, and whole barrels were able to be re-distributed to the UK rather than paying the additional cost of breaking them down.
So, if it’s empty, and it’s a good cask, then it goes straight onto the ship and over to the distillery direct. The casks that are sent to Scotland can be used again and again. There’s rule of thumb, every time the cask is used it reduces its potential by half.
Through your personal lens, can you describe the perfect setting for enjoying a whisky? What song would you be listening to?
I was brought up with these Irish bands so the Irish folk song ‘Whisky in a Jar’ performed by Thin Lizzy would be my choice of music. Whether it’s with my wife, or friends, or if it’s colleagues, we work in a very social type of business, so we are sharing whisky with consumers or company visitors as well.
My wife and I have a log fire up at the barbeque house. Though we have barbeque weather we also have barbeque houses because the weather is so bad that sometimes you start the barbeque inside, so I have this barbeque inside a house, a Nordic style where everyone can sit around it- that would be my ideal setting.
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Forget a Bow Tie. Here Are 3 Black-Tie Accessories to Rock Instead
Stylist Tom Stubbs on ditching the bow tie this festive season—and what to wear alternatively.
Black tie, that essential marker of an increasingly rarefied ceremonial style, is inspiring. Nothing coaxes men into upping the sartorial ante quite like reading those words on an invitation. I say amen to raising the bar, but I can’t bear wearing a traditional bow tie—and haven’t done so for over a decade.
Around the turn of the millennium, I was enthusiastically dress-code obedient, but two unstoppable forces put me off: Fashion moved on, and I got old. Where abiding by hallowed traditions once felt exalted, it suddenly began to seem restrictive and stuffy. And while it was extraordinary to be a bow-tied 30-something, in my 40s, the convention made me feel like a pompous, conservative square. Now, menswear has changed so much that bow ties register as pedestrian garb better suited to waiters than to revellers.
Fortunately, there are several black-tie alternatives that excite and inspire me now that I’m well into my 50s—many espoused by stylish guys on the red carpet and innovative designers in London, Paris, Florence, and Milan. And though I might take a bow on nonconformism as I step into my 60s, I still plan to steer clear of the bow tie, that ultimate symbol of gentlemanly customs, for as long as I can. Here’s what I’m replacing it with.
Form and Function
I got excited seeing Lemaire’s slim metallic modernised bolo ties in the house’s fall 2024 show. A favourite of men as varied as Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, and Snoop Dogg, the bolo is perhaps best remembered as the chosen neckwear of John Travolta’s surly hit man, Vincent, in Pulp Fiction. Originally, Native American tribes including the Zuni, Hopi, and Navajo used these accessories used to fasten bandannas with plaited-leather cords. High-end versions double as a bit of jewellery, with silver slides set with turquoise and often engraved with animal motifs, including buffalo skulls and eagles. Contemporary takes abound, but vintage sleuthing can turn up some particularly beguiling options.
Gambling Man
Varying in size, flounce, and attitude, ribbon ties—also called gambler or Kentucky neckties—have long been a legitimate black-tie alternative. Actor Cillian Murphy has worn Saint Laurent’s take to various award shows, looking stand-alone chic and authentically cool. They have a distinct Western energy—Kirk Douglas donned one as Doc Holliday in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, as did Robert Vaughan in The Magnificent Seven. But they’re as much rock star as they are gunslinger: The late Johnny Thunders of the New York Dolls and Bauhaus front man Peter Murphy (style role models of mine) also wore them with panache. Take a note from the runway and wear them with a pair of boots—cowboy, Chelsea, or with a Cuban heel—to really step away from the standard.
Fit to Be Tied
Getty Images/Courtesy of Lemaire
If you want to give yourself some breathing room, consider scarves and neckerchiefs. This fall, Tom Ford proposed a louche take on evening style, using black, slim-plaited, or delicately sequined scarves whose long tassels provocatively dangle at the hips. For maximum effect, the brand styled them with open satin shirts, recalling rockers Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart. London’s La Bowtique also does beautiful outsize bows. On a smaller scale, the Twilly—a short silk scarf pioneered by Hermès—works in much the same manner. The French maison makes gorgeous options with angled ends for extra verve, whether hanging loose or more discreetly knotted.
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Show Stoppers
The Sydney Harbour Concours d’Elegance—a beauty pageant for priceless classic cars—returns for another instalment at the city’s most intriguing, and unlikeliest, venue.
The logic behind staging a prestige automobile show on an island may, at face value, seem warped—history tells us that cars and water do not play nicely. The rationale twists further when said piece of land is a former shipyard that is, aesthetically, more workhorse ute than classic Ferrari.
Scratch beneath the surface, however, and the decision to plant the Sydney Harbour Concours d’Elegance on Cockatoo Island for the second year running begins to make locational sense: the steel arch of the emblematic bridge acting as photogenic backcloth; the UNESCO World Heritage site’s previous guises as 19th-century penal colony and eminent boat-building facility fleshing the show’s historical bones; the theatre of watching collectors delicately coaxing their four-wheeled artworks off a rusty roll-on/roll-off barge in the islet’s wharf before showtime. (After all, if owning a car in this stratosphere isn’t about projecting drama, then what’s the point?)
Throw in an endless endowment of free Champagne for guests and VIP transport from the mainland via superyacht, and it barely matters that the three-day jamboree is, in the words of founder and curator James Nicholls, “a logistical nightmare”.
“People love the energy, the adventure” says the Anglo-Italian, a broadcaster, writer and photographer whose extensive resume includes various stints as a concours judge across the world. “There’s a great contrast between the luxurious motor cars and the industrial environment. The Turbine Shop [a timeworn, hanger-like space used to display the vehicles] is where ocean-going liners and propellers were built. People interested in cars are also interested in that kind of thing but it’s just a backdrop. Cars are the main focal point.”
The concours d’elegance concept (“concours” means “competition” in French) can be traced back to 17th-century Paris, when aristocrats would flaunt horse-drawn carriages in local parks during summer months. Animals eventually gave way to automobiles, and the gatherings mutated into more organised contests in which these new-fangled contraptions were, in somewhat prescient fashion, judged solely on the appearance. The trend spread throughout European high society, before reaching America in 1950 with an inaugural pageant at Pebble Beach, California—a concours which has since evolved into a behemoth of the species, now billing itself as “the world’s most prestigious car show” and drawing 214 vehicles and spectators in the low five figures at the last annual meeting. Other concours are thriving globally, from spectacles in Lake Como in Italy (the longest running event, launched in 1929) to Udaipur in India. Vanity, it seems, remains in vogue.
Among this storied company, Sydney’s interpretation is playing catch-up. But Nicholls insists the local variant—launched in 2019, having occupied three other citywide locations—has no intention of locking horns with competitors. Not numerically, at least.
“In 2024, we had 500 people over the three days; this year we’ll aim for 750. But we’re never going to become a 20,000-people show,” he says. “We want it to be bespoke and beautiful, so people don’t have to queue for a glass of Champagne. You can talk to the car owners, and everyone feels like a VIP.” The overarching aim is to become a “destination event” on the socialite calendar, on par with the Melbourne Cup or the Australian Grand Prix.
While keen to keep paying visitors guessing, Nicholls offers Robb Report a sneak peek into some of the 44 objets booked to occupy the coarse, exposed-brick viewing hall, ranging from turn-of-the-century rarities to modern-day exotics: a 1905 Eugène Brillié 20/24 HP Coupé Chauffeur, believed to be the only one of its ilk left; a 1955 Porsche Speedster 356 “Pre A”, examples of which are valued in excess of $750,000; a Lamborghini Miura 3400, a model famed for its starring role in the opening sequence to 1969’s The Italian Job movie; a 2021 Audi R8 Spyder, an iteration that is no longer being produced and thus quietly accruing kudos.
Up to seven “classes” will be open, including categories solely for Porsche Speedsters and pre-war Australian coachbuilt cars. Two 1930s Bugattis are slated for appearance, one of which is, as this article is being written, on a boat somewhere, on its way to Australia. A panel of seven judges, led by the first ever female concours head assessor, who also adjudicated in 2024, will select the overall “Best in Show” winner—scored last time out by a 1964 Ferrari 250 LM, a model line with a $24 million price tag attached. And in a progressive play designed to lure the oil-shunning generation, an “electric elegance” section will debut. Nicholls estimates the combined value of all this precious metal at around $80 million.
While it would provoke an illicit thrill to discover that frenzied super-collectors were slyly puncturing rivals’ tyres or keying priceless bodywork—skulduggery has plagued other pageants, from dog show Crufts (canine poisoning) to Miss World (rigging allegations)—the entrants are, in keeping with the show’s refined, English-garden-party profile—a gentlemanly bunch. To a point. “They like meeting up, the community that’s here, but they do get competitive,” says Mark Ussher, the Sydney Harbour Concours d’Elegance managing director, and on-the-ground organiser. “They care about their cars but they’re investors as well as collectors. If they win a concours anywhere around the world it adds value to the car.”
Which makes it doubly important that, surrounded by all that deep Harbour water, everyone remembers to put their handbrake on.
The Sydney Harbour Concours D’Elegance runs from February 28th-March 2nd 2025; sydneyharbourconcours.com.au
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Jannik Sinner Is the First Tennis Player to Take a Luxury Bag Onto Wimbledon’s Centre Court
The 23-year-old Italian flaunted a custom Gucci duffle bag on center court.
Jannik Sinner aced the style game at last year’s Wimbledon Championships.
The Italian tennis star turned up to his match against Juan Manuel Cerundolo with a custom Gucci duffel bag on his shoulder. It marks the first time a designer bag has been carried onto centre court in the history of the prestigious, centuries-old tennis tournament, as reported by Women’s Wear Daily.
The duffel, which Sinner describes as a “timeless classic,” showcases the house’s signature beige and ebony colorway, the iconic GG monogram, and a contrasting green and red web stripe. It also features the athlete’s initials near the straps. Ironically, the rather traditional design has called into question a 150-year tradition.
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Wimbledon’s dress code is extremely strict: Players have been required to wear white at the event since 1877, with not even off-white or cream permitted on the court. Tennis whites were originally instated as it was believed the ensemble showed less sweat, as reported by Time. The tradition has continued out of respect for the sport’s history and a desire to maintain formality.
The rules are enforced, too: Our own player Nick Kyrgios was allegedly fined $25,000 for rocking red Air Jordan trainers at 2023’s tournament. Interestingly, the decidedly non-white Gucci accessory was reportedly given the all-clear by the powers that be. A spokesperson for Gucci told WWD the house worked with Sinner’s team “for the approvals from the ITF (International Tennis Federation), ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals), and Grand Slams, including Wimbledon, to ensure the bag met the necessary requirements.”
The 23-year-old, who turned pro at age 18, became a Gucci ambassador in 2023 in his first luxury fashion endorsement. “Gucci for me represents Italian excellence around the world, excellence which is rooted in tradition as much as in innovation,” Sinner said. “This is the kind of message I am proud to convey when I represent my country wherever I am in the world.”
The Italian player was capture in action last week during his 1st round men’s singles match against Nicolas Jarry (from Chile) on day two of the Australian Open at Melbourne Park with more Gucci gear. Sinner carried a custom duffle bag crafted by HEAD and designed by Gucci to the men’s singles match on day two of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne.
Sinner will play Australian Alex de Minaur tomorrow 22 January at the Australian Open.
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SPA
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POOL
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Hole In One
The Citizen Kanebridge VHG Golf Open Returns to The Southern Highlands This February.
The third annual Citizen Kanebridge VHG Golf Open Day is happening again this year at Citizen Kanebridge Lodge in the Southern Highlands on Friday, February 21. Players will tee off from 8 am for a day of unrivalled bucolic hospitality in the spirit of friendly competition.
The Open unites forces with the operators of Mount Broughton in Sutton Forrest to stage the popular day, in which teams of four enter to enjoy 18 holes of unadulterated fun.
Players will meet at the clubhouse, where—golf aside—they will be served breakfast, lunch and liquid refreshments throughout the day before heading back to Citizen Kanebridge Lodge for a special dinner, fun awards ceremony and more drinks.
Located just 10 minutes from the Citizen Kanebridge Lodge in Berrima, the stunning Mount Broughton course gives players—male and female, and ranging from amateur to semi professional—the chance to compete in a golf day with plenty of high-jinks and food along with way.
The event is part of the new offering from Citizen Kanebridge, a private membership club based in Sydney. Citizen Kanebridge allows members to have access to the Robb Report Club(RR1) based in the United States of America, Citizen Kanebridge Lodge in the Southern Highlands of NSW, and The Royal Automobile Club of Australia (RACA) in Circular Quay, Sydney.
Members interested in Golf Open Day, may enquire by reaching out to leanne@citizenkanebridge.com.au. For more information on Golf Open day, you can download the information brochure here.
Love golf? jump to our golf connoisseurship package from the Spring 2024 issue of Robb Report ANZ.
