It's like buying a piece of history, or art: The Balvenie's Charles Metcalfe

Sachin Mehta: If we go back a couple of years, even The Balvenie 12-year-old was available in only four metro cities because we didn’t have large quantities available. Now, we have increased its availability. The Balvenie is crafted in a way that doesn’t make it abundant. However, there are consumers who love it. So, we are hoping to have more allocations for India.

The allocation of one bottle represents confidence, and the fact that India is becoming a bigger priority for the brand. We are planning to bring other limited editions to India. We have a limited number of the 25-year-old and the 30-year-old bottles being sold in India too. It's momentous to be able to get one of the 125 bottles to India, which has not happened before.

Q. Tell us about the heritage and craftsmanship of The Balvenie Fifty?

CM: It's an amazing story, and signifies the foresight of people at our distillery including the malt masters, and the family. A lot of our competitors and friends don't have the opportunity to offer whiskeys like this. We're under no pressure, and can take our time to nurture and create incredible, rare, old expressions.

Q. How has India’s whiskey market evolved, from being a volume market to becoming a collector’s destination, for legacy Scotch houses like yourself?

CM: When we see people starting on their collecting journey with spirits, we realise they will enjoy collecting our offerings. Across Asia, collecting spirits is a massive thing and definitely with rare, old whiskeys. I don't yet know how popular it is in India, but I hear from our team that it is getting there.

SM: Collecting is more about having a prize possession. And something like the 50-year-old Balvenie is a remarkable possession. Our consumers, especially those coming into whiskey recently, want to own such prize possessions which have has just one window to own it. This edition of the 50-year-old will possibly not be there after this bottle is gone. In many other categories, especially Scottish aged rare whiskey, India is growing as a collector’s destination.

CM: This is unique because it is a single cask whiskey; it's been in one cask its whole life. We can't recreate that very specific thing again. We can offer another 50-year-old whiskey, but it won’t be this 50-year-old.

Q. Rare whiskies are also seen as alternative investments. What factors fuel these investments?

CM: The truly rare old whiskeys like this one are always going to be rare because the process of creating them is long. So much of it evaporates in the process of being made, and we get only very limited volumes. If you look at the price points of old vintage whiskeys that have been sold before, they're worth much more now. This is due to the growing global interest and popularity of single malts.

SM: If you look at different investment categories, there are some in which the technology will outgrow quickly. For instance, there'll be a better car or a better watch. Whereas in this case, what it has is tradition and time, and that's the value. So, it's a great investment. I won't say financial investment, but it's a great investment because nothing can beat what has been created over here.

CM: It's like buying a piece of history, or art. And at the end of the day, you can drink it and enjoy it. You can't do that with Bitcoin.

Q. Yours is one of the few distilleries still practicing traditional crafts like floor malting and coopering. How do these ‘Five Rare Crafts’ add up to make The Balvenie Fifty?

CM: We have an approach to craftsmanship that sets us up for creating very small-scale luxury single malt scotch whiskeys. What we call the Five Rare Crafts come together to create the best quality of whiskey possible. They are all very traditional. Down to the casks and the coopers who make them, the coppersmiths who tend to the stills, the malt men who look after the barley, the farmers, and ultimately, our whiskey maker—all five of those things come together in a traditional way that sets us apart from the rest of the industry. Very few distilleries, if any, do all these in-house.

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Q. How do you marry this strong sense of tradition with modern palates, especially in markets like India where the demography is increasingly young and experimental?

SM: There is no doubt about how big whiskey continues to be in India, and the aspirational category within that is the Scottish single malt. There is an exploration space in other categories as well as in whiskeys. People are looking at consuming single malt in different ways. This continues to grow, and still is the biggest. The need that Balvenie and this category fulfils in India has really big potential.

Q. What steps is The Balvenie taking to reduce its environmental footprint, from grain sourcing to distillation and packaging?

CM: It’s something that is very important to the company. We're looking to cut down any unnecessary carbon footprint that we can. Where sourcing barley is concerned, we try to source locally and certainly from Scotland as far as we can, thus minimising the footprint. The trucks used to move the grain is powered by gas produced from our distillery while making whiskey. It's an energy loop. Even the peat we're smoking is carefully tended to and cut and is re-cultured once we've cut it.