By James Atkinson
Blended Scotch whisky Grant's last night launched its new 12 Year Old aged variant at Sydney's stylish Ivy Penthouse bar, kicking off the biggest marketing spend on the brand in many years.
Grant's marketing manager, Nathan Fisher told TheShout the release of the 12 Year Old is about changing perceptions of the brand in Australia, where up until recently it consisted of only a single expression – the Family Reserve.
"Grant's is perceived as a standard blend Scotch in the Australian market, everyone knows it as being a very good quality value for money brand," he said.
"[But until now] we didn't actually have additional variants in the Australian market to enable our customers and our drinkers to actually migrate up through the different levels of ageing and quality expertise."
Fisher said the launch of the 12 Year Old, which follows the recent launch of the ale and sherry cask variants, is "starting to create that ladder" in the Grant's family for whisky enthusiasts.
"Hopefully towards the end of the year we'll be able to launch the 25 Year Old," he added.
Grant's global brand ambassador, Ludo Ducrocq (pictured right-hand-side with Nathan Fisher) told TheShout that like the Family Reserve, Grant's 12 Year Old is produced in the Speyside style – "rich, sweet, honeyed flavours with just a touch of smoke".
But he said Grant's 12 Year Old is the only blended whisky to be finished in American oak casks, producing a full-bodied Scotch of exceptional richness.
"If you like, Grant's 12 Year Old is the big brother of the Family Reserve," he said.
Ducrocq said Grant's uses between 15 and 20 different whiskies in the 12 Year Old blend.
"We've only got five different distilleries. There's only one company in Scotland that potentially would be big enough to be completely self-reliant – even they choose not to be.
"We all work together as an industry, we all often swap whisky with one another, and what we try to do is to have as varied a selection of whiskies in our warehouses as possible – which means that now we are approaching 2.5 million casks."