Glenfiddich 1959 honours a new partnership with Aston Martin Formula One Team

In partnership with Glenfiddich

Velocity and distillery. Stealth and speed. British racing green and Highland gold. Glenfiddich’s partnership with Aston Martin Formula One Team is an alliance of complementary disciplines and shared values: two timeless marques renowned for their history and innovation, coming together in a relentless pursuit of excellence.

How did this heritage-fuelled pairing get together?

Slowly at first, then very quickly. Just a few months ago, as the 2024 F1 race season started, the storied Aston Martin marque and the revered Scotch whisky house agreed on a partnership that would foster an industry-transcending legacy and set a new standard for blending passion, precision and quality.

Racing against the clock and cross-border distances, factory visits were arranged, the Aston Martin Formula One Team coming to Dufftown, Scotland, and in turn hosting the distillers in England. Common ground in expertise, processes and principles were rapidly revealed. ‘We discovered a lot of similarities,’ says Glenfiddich CEO Søren Hagh. ‘A very deep heritage, a long and rich history of pushing boundaries. A meticulous way of working.’

At Aston Martin Formula One Team’s brand-new Technology Campus in Silverstone, with its state-of-the-art wind tunnel, optimised working environment and intelligent use of natural light, the Glenfiddich visitors encountered a sleek, fast and hyper-modern environment. ‘But also a very slow, manual and methodical way of doing things,’ says Hagh. ‘When you are making an F1 car, nothing is left to chance and everything is exact. There’s an element of magic as you watch every part, process and essential ingredient coming together in the correct way. There’s an evolving design language, a careful application of skill and passion. The unhurried investment of time. Just like our distillers, malt masters and coopers, these people are specialists in their respective crafts.’

In both Formula One and whisky distillation, there’s an obsession with detail, agrees Brian Kinsman, Glenfiddich Malt Master. ‘With whisky, we need to know the pH of the water, the temperature of the mash. Even the exact position of the warehouse plays a part. Constant monitoring. No corners cut.’

At each meeting, fascination and connection flourished – and Hagh’s curiosity and appetite for synergistic potential rapidly accelerated. ‘How could we marry something that moves very slowly with something that moves very fast?’ he reflects, adding that ‘we found a genuine connection and a shared set of values’. With only a few months to pull the project together, both distillery and car-maker worked at pit-crew intensity. At Silverstone speed, the Aston Martin AMR24 arrived in Moray, Scotland to receive its Glenfiddich livery.

To honour the partnership with a whisky, Glenfiddich looked to 1959, the year of Aston Martin’s Formula One debut, unearthing a rare expression from the same year. Research proved the 1950s to have been a pivotal time for whisky’s future and a defining one for Glenfiddich – a period when single malts were virtually unknown beyond Scotland. This particular expression, casked by third Malt Master Gordon Grant, had helped lay the groundwork for the category’s rise and also plays a key role in Glenfiddich’s heritage.

Some 75 years later, that same expression, made from an exceptional sherry cask known for its rich intensity, embodies the craftsmanship of Glenfiddich Malt Masters across generations. How rich, intense and exceptional is the resulting whisky? Kinsman references worn leather and fine chocolate.

A deep mahogany-hued single malt, the whisky is ‘layered with notes of oak, aged leather, tannin and beeswax mingling with the earthy essence of a dunnage warehouse floor’, explain the tasting notes. ‘A drop of water releases waves of sweetness and dried fruit, with whispers of raisins and sun-dried prunes.’ On the palate, it’s a journey of ‘bold and balanced flavours: oaky spice intermingling with cloves, dates, and walnuts, evoking Christmas pudding and dark chocolate’. As flavours linger, they shift up a gear to offer intense depth, complexity and a sensory experience that mirrors the high-performance elegance of Aston Martin F1.

Serendipitously, and to much delight, Glenfiddich discovered that 1959 also happened to be Aston Martin Formula One Team boss Lawrence Stroll’s birth year and the year when the iconic, Betty Wilis-designed ‘Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas’ sign made its debut on The Strip. It was perfectly fitting, then, that Nevada would play host to the launch of the Glenfiddich 1959 liquid on the occasion of the Las Vegas F1 Grand Prix, while The Strip itself would announce the partnership with Aston Martin Formula One Team to the world.

Bringing excellence and passion, Glenfiddich’s signature intensity balanced with Aston Martin Formula One Team’s bold spirit, this new chapter in the slow art of whisky-making marks a shift up to new depth for the F1 universe.

glenfiddich.com