Glenlivet is taking its fight in the premium market to exactly the right place with its latest whisky, elliptically called Cipher.
The bottle is handsome and yet with its latest premium offering called Cipher, Glenlivet can’t be accused of hiding behind packaging or branding. They invite the consumer to concentrate on what is in the bottle rather than the label on it, which in fact is reduced to the bare essentials with no information about the contents whatsoever.
Glenlivet’s International Brand Ambassador Ian Logan
That is the idea behind the Cipher, positioned as a mystery for the consumer to solve, which may itself turn out to be a master marketing stroke to coax consumers over the forbidding price tag of £110. Buyers are invited to taste and submit their own thoughts on what flavours stand out, just as we were at the launch tasting.
International brand ambassador Ian Logan and distilling manager Alan Winchester gave us a master class in that art, starting with a nip of the neat cask strength spirit before diluting by at least half to dissect the flavours – 20% is the ideal strength for tasting whisky, which is down about to the level of a fortified wine.
Glenlivet’s Distilling Manager Alan Winchester
I could tell at once that this was a malt whisky steeped in the modern tradition with little peat, allowing other flavours to emerge gracefully from the body and for me liquorice stood out alongside caramel to give a full long taste for a whisky. I also detected honey and honeycomb, almost Crunchie bar, which seemed to meet with Logan’s approval, so we can see something of a theme here, although I also noted some more fragrant tastes like rose petal suffusing the foreground of my palate.
I did identify some flavours which our hosts denied were there. However Logan did point out that perception resided to a large extent in the palate of the beholder, since there is no exact chemical match between what is in the liquid and the candidate flavours. For that reason such identification will always be an inexact science with wriggle room for varying interpretations, which Glenlivet is actively encouraging with the Cipher.
Beyond the flavours lies a fine well balanced whisky with a long finish that has a chance of backing up Glenlivet’s aim to establish the brand high up the order of quality and justify the price tag.
There are more whiskies these days reaching for those heights and not just from Scotland but also elsewhere including Japan, which was Logan’s first port of call on a whistle stop worldwide tour to promote the Cipher.
It is a competitive field, but with its focus on taking time to taste what is in the bottle, Glenlivet is taking the fight exactly where it should go and is confident of standing up to the resulting scrutiny.
