Dennis Malcolm
Cover Dennis Malcolm

What’s it like to spend six decades in the whisky industry and make a single malt dedicated after yourself? The Glen Grant’s Dennis Malcolm details the highlights of a spirited career

Dennis Malcolm doesn’t like birthdays—because that reminds him that he’s a year older. He much prefers his work anniversaries with The Glen Grant because that means another year notched up at work, doing what he loves to do. He has been named an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, and received the first-ever Spirit of Speyside award in 2015. 

The long-time master distiller is 60-years young at The Glen Grant, which he first joined as an apprentice cooper at 15 years old. He believes he was destined to join the industry, being born in a house on the grounds of The Glen Grant and following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, who both worked for the distillery.

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The Glen Grant 60
Above The Glen Grant 60

A Worthy Dram

Picking a cask worthy of Dennis’ six-decade anniversary fell on him personally, but he was well prepared. “I selected this Oloroso Sherry cask a while ago for its taste and aroma, and I opened it this year which is 60 years from when I started at The Glen Grant. As I drew the liquid out, I could see the beautiful chestnut colour,” Dennis describes over a video call. He vividly recalls being around 10 years old and collecting glossy brown chestnuts from the huge tree on the grounds of The Glen Grant. The brilliant deep autumn gold colour of those chestnuts has stuck in his memory ever since and is how he describes the remarkable colour of The Dennis Malcolm 60th Anniversary Edition.

Describing the profile, he describes, “Aroma wise, first you get ripe Seville orange, then soft fruits – not apples and pears, as might be typical in this region, but apricots and peaches, and the nuts to me are pecan, with a little soft hint of cigar smoke. Prior to 1973 when I knocked down the maltings and doubled the distillery, the liquid at The Glen Grant was made with a little bit of peated malt.” On the palate, he calls it “liquid Christmas cake – a very dense fruitcake with orange, sultanas, raisins and covered with marzipan on top.” Layers of dark chocolate and treacle notes lead to a very long, lingering finish, still with the delicate hint of smoke.

Bottled at 52.8% and non-chill filtered, just 360 bottles of The Glen Grant The Dennis Malcolm 60th Anniversary Edition have been produced, with only 10 available in Singapore. Each decanter that holds the liquid takes over 15 hours to be meticulously crafted in the shape of the distillery’s slender tall stills, a feat undertaken in mouth-blown crystal glass by Glencairn Studio and presented in a sustainable walnut case. Each case is engraved with Dennis’ signature and includes a certificate of authenticity personally signed by Dennis.

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Looking Back and Forward

Dennis began his career as a cooper, curious as to how a wooden barrel without the use of glue could be used to hold liquid, and at 25 became a manager on the production floor. “I was super confident and fit, and very fortunate that the process and perimeters had been passed down faithfully over time from the founder, to the great grandson, and to me,” he reminisced. “I was just a young boy but around me there were hundreds of years of experience combined if you count it all up, and I knew I wasn’t going to fail because my colleagues wouldn’t let me fail.”

He details the uniqueness of The Glen Grant, using innovations borne from the 1800s till today, such as the water-cooled purifiers that result in lighter and fruitier flavours in the spirit.

When he started, all records were kept by hand, with pencil and ink wells. Each cask profile was tasted and recorded in the book of production that dated back to 1840. He quips, “Around 1963, we got a calculator that was half the size of a computer then. We didn’t quite trust it though, and still totalled up the figures ourselves.” Naturally, the distillery today is thoroughly modernised with computers to run the distillation, but Dennis is quick to note that it takes experience to oversee the process and know when things go wrong.

Looking back, Dennis is most proud of his current range of premium expressions, which was made possible after The Glen Grant’s acquisition by the Campari Group in 2006. “Campari Group gave me the opportunity to double the capacity of The Glen Grant,” Dennis explains. From three expressions, Dennis now has a larger range of five expressions to cater to more tastes and has continued to be hands-on with the upgraded range despite having trained a successor.

He stressed, “More important than all of that though, is the people I work with – they’re the ones who carry the passion and pride to the next generation. When you see what they do, you know you can sit back because The Glen Grant is in good hands for future generations.”


For enquiries, contact Remy Cointreau, the official distributor for The Glen Grant in Singapore, at 9738 5630 or andrew.law@remy-cointreau.com; Metabev, the official distributor for The Glen Grant in Hong Kong at +852 9748 1117 or cindyc@meta-bev.com; or Lucky Dio, the official distributor for The Glen Grant in Taiwan at +886 963-206-806 or hankuan.lin@campari.com

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