Compass Box Whisky
Compass Box Whisky Company is headed by founder and whisky-maker John Glaser, who spent many years working in the wine trade before moving into Scotch whisky and a role as marketing director for Johnnie Walker.
As the company puts it, he established Compass Box Whisky “…based on his commitment to evolving practices in the industry to make great Scotch whisky more approachable and relevant to more people.”
Unsurprisingly, given his wine background, Glaser has a deep commitment to wood quality when it comes to maturation, and at times he has pushed the boundaries of conventional whisky wisdom. For example, he created the first commercial blended grain Scotch whisky, named Hedonism, and Spice Tree, which fell foul of the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) for its use of suspending staves of toasted French oak within conventional casks.
Compass Box offers a ‘Signature Range,’ which comprises The Spice Tree, The Peat Monster, Oak Cross, Asyla and Hedonism. Meanwhile, the company’s ‘Limited Range’ offers limited edition whiskies such as Hedonism Quindecimus and Flaming Heart. Compass Box’s third range is Great King Street – blended Scotch with 50% malt content, which also bears the company’s trademark transparency about component whiskies and maturation regimes.
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Owner
Compass Box Whisky Company
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Status
Operational
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Country
Scotland
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Region
Highland
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Production type:
Single Malt
Single Grain
Blended whisky
Blended grain
Blended Malt
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Founded
2000
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Production yearly
Unknown
History
Compass Box Whisky was established by John Glaser in 2000, and its first commercial release was the blended grain Hedonism, offered the same year. Peat Monster – originally just The Monster – was launched four years later, comprising heavily-peated Islay and medium-peated Highland malts, which went on to become the company’s best-seller.
The original version of The Spice Tree blended malt was marketed in 2005, but withdrawn the following year, being replaced by a variant with heavily-toasted cask heads instead of the staves disapproved of by the SWA. The Great King Street range of blended Scotch whiskies was inaugurated with Great King Street Artist’s Blend in 2011, followed by Glasgow Blend in 2014.
In April 2015, Bermuda-based Bacardi became a minority shareholder in Compass Box Whisky, having established a relationship with the company through a supply contract for component whiskies.
Timeline of Compass Box
John Glasser
“During my first trip to Scotland I ended up in a blending room with Maureen Robinson, who is still one of the lead senior blenders at Diageo today. The perimeter of the room had shelves, and there were nosing glasses on all the shelves. Each glass had a little bit of whisky in it, with a watch glass on top. There was a big measuring cylinder and small sample bottles all around. She was nosing all the whiskies. As someone with a background in wine, where blending grape varieties and vineyards is common, that struck me as fascinating.
Basically I started blending at home. This is 25 years ago now. I started with what back then would be considered a pretty silly whisky collection, and I blended from bottled whisky that I would buy myself. Or samples that I would get from the company.
I can’t remember the recipes from back then, but I was trying to create something that was mine and that tasted beautiful. I would make little vattings and bottle them and give them as gifts to friends and family. But then [Johnnie Walker] moved me to London, and part of my responsibility was product development. That’s when I started to really get under the skin of blending, learning from Maureen and [Johnnie Walker’s master blender] Jim Beveridge.
Most people are born with a pretty good nose. Those who are great at nosing are the people that concentrate on it, do a lot of it and learn. They learn the vocabulary and what to expect. Nosing and assessing is one part of it. The blending part, the creation, is really intuition, which is what you develop over time. I’ve always, going back to my early days, talked about whiskies that are delicious. Back when people said, ‘Delicious is not a whisky word.’ But, why not? Great whiskies have a deliciousness that makes you want to take another sip.
If I’m decent at one thing, it is having a sense of what people that have grown up in the cultures that I have grown up in, like and find delicious in whisky. Blending has a technical aspect, and you develop intuition for what happens when you develop certain whiskies. But then there is understanding what you’re trying to make, and if something is really good or just okay. That’s the big measure at Compass Box. We try to find this balance of flavors and deliciousness.”
Core range
At this point Compass Box core range is:
Blended whisky:
- Artist Blend
- Glasgow Blend
Grain whisky:
- Hedonism
Malt Collection:
- Orchard House
- The Story of the Spaniard
- The Spice Tree
- The Peat Monster
- Oak Cross
- The Circle No.2
Malt whisky collection
- Orchard House
- The Story of the Spaniard
- The Spice Tree
- The Peat Monster
- Oak Cross
- The Circle No.2
Limited Editions
Experimental Grain Whisky
Vellichor
No Name, No.3
Canvas
Menagerie
Magic Cask
This is not a Festival Whisky
Peat Monster Arcana
Hedonism Felicitas
Rogues’ Banquet
Myths & Legends I
Myths & Legends II
Myths & Legends III
The Circle
No Name, No.2
Affinity
Transistor
Compass Box X Lyaness
Juveniles
Stranger & Stranger
Flaming Heart
Delilah’s XXV
Phenomenology
Archive bottles
- Tobias & the Angel
- Spice Tree Extravaganza
- No Name
- Orangerie
- Hedonism The Muse
- The Double Single
- Enlightenment
- The Circus
- Asyla
- This is not a luxury Whisky
CONTACT DETAILS
Compass Box Whisky
Chiswick Studios
9 Power Road
London W4 5PY
United Kingdom
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tel: +44(0)20 8995 0899
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hello@compassboxwhisky.com