UK | Johnnie Walker Vault has united bespoke blends, luxurious experiences and collaborations with cultural icons under one visionary banner.
Crafted in the Johnnie Walker Vault, a creative 'atelier' hidden deep beneath Princes Street in Edinburgh, The Couture Blend followed the success of Couture Expression, the first release under the Johnnie Walker Vault luxury platform.
This limited-edition luxury Scotch whisky is experimental and progressive at its heart. Imagined by Olivier Rousteing as the centrepiece of his collection with Johnnie Walker Vault, it is a liquid manifesto of style, balance and spirit.
Pushing the boundaries of what a luxury Scotch can be, its profile showcased experimental modern whiskies alongside vintage and ghost whiskies from long-closed distilleries. Rousteing's architectural bottle design also merges tradition with reinvention, bringing his radically modern couture aesthetic to redefine the codes of luxury Scotch.
The whisky launched at a significant moment for Rousteing, coinciding with his 40th birthday. To honour this, Dr Emma Walker included several whiskies of at least 40 years old, layering them with experimental and rare whiskies to create a unique tension of flavour and style.
In crafting the blend, Dr Walker selected just 10 whiskies from the Johnnie Walker Vault – a liquid library of 500 rare whiskies curated from 10 million casks of Scotch.
She chose ghost whiskies from closed distilleries, such as Port Dundas and Caledonian, to tell a story of tradition and rarity, layering them with trailblazing whiskies from the 1980s and 1990s, including Benrinnes, Cragganmore, and Cameronbridge.
Contemporary expressions from the last two decades, such as Cardhu, Roseisle and Teaninich, brought experimentation in process and finishes.
Rousteing reinterpreted the proportions of luxury crystal decanters while paying homage to the square bottles iconic to Johnnie Walker since the 1800s. The result is an architectural decanter that clashes heritage with a more maximalist contemporary aesthetic.
Sculptural with prominent shoulders, the crystal bottle is topped with an oversized square stopper. This play on proportions and echoes Rousteing's bold tailoring, whilst staying true to Johnnie Walker's heritage. The decanter is adorned with gold, and select retailers also offer a personalisable collar engraved with the collector's initials.
With only 1,500 individually numbered crystal decanters produced, The Couture Blend is available at selected luxury retailers.
