WHISKEY WITH A TOUCH OF
LUXURY LIVING DINING u
WHISKEY WITH A TOUCH OF
ROMANCE
SPEY from Speyside Distillery celebrates 200th anniversary of Byron’ s marriage with an exclusive 200 limited edition release
Two hundred years after the marriage of celebrated Romantic poet Lord Byron, Speyside Distillery has launched an exclusive limited edition release to commemorate this special wedding anniversary. Matured in port casks, the whisky has a taste as sophisticated as the aristocrat and as complex as his personality. Just 200 cases – amounting to 1,200 bottles – of the limited edition expression have been produced.
The boutique distillery nestled at the foot of the Cairngorm mountains has a historic link to the George Gordon Byron, who was known for his scandalous private life as much as his talents as a wordsmith. Lord Byron is said to have gifted a cask of his favourite SPEY whisky to King George III to celebrate the occasion of his wedding in 1815 to Lady Annabelle Millbanke- a union that was to last less than two years.
Speyside Distillery chief executive officer John Harvey McDonough believes that Lord Byron- who was known to enjoy a dram- would have approved of the gesture. He adds,“ It is a fascinating part of our history and one of which we are incredibly proud. It is understood that when Lord Byron wed at Seaham Hall in Northumberland, a cask of SPEY whisky was sent down to Kew Palace in London as a gift for the King. A replica of the cask remains in Seaham Hall, where SPEY has a mini museum in the cellar. Two centuries have passed, but we are still making SPEY whisky in the same time-honoured traditional ways and we are continuing to create very desirable drams. We believe that Lord Byron would have been delighted that we have chosen to mark the anniversary by creating a new single malt expression in his name. We wonder if it would have stirred him enough to put pen to paper- we can only dream of the words he would have conjured up in tribute.”
SPEY Lord Byron expression is a delicate balance of warm, nutty, tawny port hues with a soft sweet toffee aftertaste and a fresh, fruity lingering note which soothes the palate like the finest warm honey caressing ones tongue. At 46 % ABV, 70c, it has an RRP of £ 95.
Lord Byron spent his early years in Aberdeen- around 100 miles from Speyside Distillery- before completing his education at Harrow School and Cambridge University. After returning to England following a tour of European countries, he began to court Annabelle Millbanke. Said to be a highly moral woman- as well as a gifted mathematician and heiress- she refused his first proposal but later accepted his hand in marriage. He may have been one of the greatest poets of the Romantic Movement, but Lord Byron treated his new wife poorly: there were rumours of scandalous affairs and he also mounted up significant debts. The couple had a daughter- Ada- but just a year into the marriage, Lady Byron left him. Lord Byron left England later that year, never to return. He died in Greece on 19 April, 1824 after developing a fever.
110 LUXURY LIVING
John adds,“ Many, many years after the marriage at Seaham Hall, in a strange quirk of fate, my family developed a further connection to the historic property. My grandfather Alec Harvey ran a whisky export business from Seaham Hall, and exported whisky to the US during the prohibition era”.