There’s a parallel between the craft of whisky making and the creation of art. Behind both processes, there’s an inherent flow of inspiration; an intangible magic to the impressions the creators feel throughout their process, and the emotions the acts of creation invoke.
For the team at The Glenrothes, art is one of the things that inspire their craft at the distillery. We’ll hear from Anna Lisa Stone, Head of Creative at The Glenrothes, about how The Glenrothes team draws inspiration from the art world, and how photographer Kate Jackling used her creativity to bring the new 25 to life.
Artistry, Inspiration and Whisky
In making their whiskies, The Glenrothes team balances reverence for tradition and innovation. With their distillery dating back to the 1800s, The Glenrothes’ whisky-making process is steeped in tradition. But while the team is defined by their craft, they’re also inspired by the art world and the desire to innovate.
As Head of Creative, Anna Lisa Stone holds creativity in high regard. And in bringing the 25 to life, Stone found inspiration from the world of art. For Stone and The Glenrothes team, there’s push-pull between adherence to rules and rule-breaking when it comes to making whisky. While she recognizes the distinctions between whisky making and the arts, Stone draws on some of the parallels between them.
“I think in both [art and whisky making], there are rules that are really important — what you do with them and how you play with them. In many cases, the reverence, or irreverence, that you bring to those rules is what defines the art.”
“I think in both [art and whisky making], there are rules that are really important — what you do with them and how you play with them. In many cases, the reverence, or irreverence, that you bring to those rules is what defines the art,” says Stone. “In our whisky making, even in a quiet kind of way, we’ve pushed those boundaries, challenged those roles or leaned into them.”
The Wisdom in Waiting: The Evolution of the 25
After 25 years of influence, maturation, and evolution, Stone considers the new 25 to be a milestone for The Glenrothes. In her mind, the decision to let the whisky age a quarter-century was The Glenrothes’ own way of quietly pushing boundaries.
There was a kind of artistic alchemy behind the new 25, one that resided, “...between the artistry of the distillery team and the qualities of the liquid, which have only obtained that luxurious depth through…the [act of] letting be, by creating space.”
Allowing the 25 to age, she says, was a stroke of inspiration in and of itself, as it allowed the whisky’s flavours to deepen over time. This decision was made possible by Laura Rampling, Master Whisky Maker at The Glenrothes, and the artisans in the distillery, whose intuition and decades of experience helped guide their work.
Stone holds Laura Rampling’s craft in high esteem, likening her work to that of an artist. In creating the 25, Stone says:
“Laura takes great care in curating the journey of these casks, where they go and their maturation, in a way that other, bigger distilleries can’t always pull off. So…when we have Laura’s signature on the bottle, it’s the artist giving her signature, because she has poured her vision into that.”
Read more about Laura Rampling’s process in our exclusive interview.
A Different Way to Visualise Flavour
In visualising the 25’s imagery, The Glenrothes team wanted to take an abstract approach rather than literally showing the whisky. They decided to evoke the world of art through conceptual imagery, loosely representative of the 25’s tasting notes and The Glenrothes Estate.
To achieve this, they worked with Kate Jackling, an accomplished, London-born photographer whose past clients include British Vogue, Calvin Klein, Chanel, and Burberry. In viewing her portfolio — one that balances gentle realism with experimental, atmospheric flourishes — The Glenrothes team knew Jackling was the right person for the job.
“What really stood out about Kate was the visceral quality and immediacy of her images. They’re at once very refined, yet they have an edge and a quiet drama to them,” Stone says. “She employs lots of different tricks and techniques — a lot of light play and shooting through diffusive paper, for instance — to create an atmosphere and an evocation.”
When it came to the execution of the 25, Jackling employed her expertise to evoke the 25 in a series of conceptual associations.
To convey the 25’s flavours and tasting notes, Jackling used plants and fruits — like oranges, vanilla pods and jasmine flowers — floating in water, all shot with refracted lenses and unique lighting effects.
Of Jackling’s photos, Stone says: “You get the perfect balance between ripples and stillness, which you can only obtain by waiting for that moment. Or, you’ll see a bottle in the rushes on the Estate when the sun has risen just at that point that casts the perfect shadows. It really relies upon getting to that perfect moment and capitalising on it,” Stone says. “And that is something that can only be obtained through waiting. For all of those reasons, she was the perfect person to bring the 25 to life.”
The Glenrothes team was vindicated by Jackling’s approach. Not only did her photos get to the heart of the 25’s essence, but Jackling also had the patience and wisdom to wait for the right shots. Through this, Stone saw a parallel to the collective patience and wisdom behind the 25 itself.
Ultimately, The Glenrothes Estate — and the skill of its artisans — are integral to the 25’s imagery and flavour.
Stone says of the Estate, “The 25 is elementally connected to The Glenrothes Estate. The water that it is made of is filtered through the rocks under the ground. With the imagery, we wanted to evoke the product, yes, but also a sense of place; a sense of magic. [The Estate] has been there for a very, very long time. What I would hope is that, even in a very small way, these images conjure…just a fragrance of the very, very special place and people who have crafted this whisky over two and a half decades.”