As a drinks journalist, I spend a lot of time guessing what conversations are going on in the boardrooms of the industry’s big players.
They don’t come much bigger than Diageo, which, for the last few years, has endured upheaval on a par with the UK government.
It started with the untimely and tragic death of the company’s CEO, Sir Ivan Menezes, in June 2023. Sir Ivan held the position for ten years and oversaw significant growth in both revenue and profit. He proved a tough act to follow. His successor, Debra Crew, lasted just two years due to falling sales and, more pertinently, the company’s share price.
We now have Sir Dave Lewis in charge, a renowned businessman who once headed the UK’s biggest supermarket chain, Tesco. Yet the share price continues to struggle. If you invested $100 in Diageo in February 2012, today it would be worth $100, with the stock price 55% down from its peak. Yet this is largely due to bad vibes. That, and a long-overdue cut to dividends.
As one of the drinks industry’s few listed companies, Diageo embodies its wider issues in real time: slowing sales, uncertainty over tariffs, and low confidence in future growth. But it is not a bad business and indeed is far from it. Johnnie Walker is still growing, and Guinness is doing particularly well, becoming London’s most popular pint.
Diageo Luxury Group (DLG), a division of the business looking after spirits retailing for $100 and over, has suffered more than most. Consumer confidence has been particularly low for ultra-premium spirits, where price rises coincided with softening demand and exposed overstocked inventories. That’s what makes DLG’s latest move, the launch of Rare Series, a bold one.
This is its first ultra-premium Scotch whisky collection launch since Prima & Ultima’s fourth release in 2023. Diageo Rare Series feels rather different from Prima & Ultima. It begins with five Scotch whiskies, and new ones will be added on an ad hoc basis. There are no grand narratives about the casks, but a simple promise that each expression reflects the distillery’s personality.
That all feels right in today’s market. The impression from private collectors is that quality and rarity are all that matter. As an annual release of eight bottles, Prima & Ultima proved too much for everyone: the whisky makers, the marketing teams, and the private clients’ wallets.
Ewan Gunn, Diageo’s senior global Scotch whisky ambassador, told me: “Rare Series brings together several milestones within a single collection, something not previously seen from Diageo in this form.
“Fundamentally, the collection is designed to take connoisseurs on a journey across Scotland defined by rarity that reveals itself over time, unearthing scattered treasures that do not typically appear in standard bottlings. It is unified by impeccable provenance, with every bottle a precise expression of its distillery’s singular character, heritage, and legacy.”
Bolder still is its choice of whiskies. There are no hero products from Diageo darlings Port Ellen or Brora. Instead, it leads with a 55-year-old expression from the little-known ghost distillery Glenury Royal. That, again, feels right. Port Ellen and Brora have reached a new arc in their story and would inevitably hog the limelight if included. They are also no longer ghost distilleries but fully functioning.
Glenury Royal, on the other hand, will never make a drop of whisky again. It was demolished, and houses have been built on the site. Glenury Royal may take up the mantle as Diageo’s ethereal dram, or it may not. Either way, this is a good place to start. This 55-year-old is not only remarkable for its age (it’s the oldest whisky Diageo has ever released), but its strength: 62.4% ABV (124.8 proof).
“The intention was to create something simple and elegant that reflects both the heritage of the distilleries and the individuality of each rare whisky”
Ewan Gunn
Dr Craig Wilson, who curated the whiskies for Diageo Rare Series, told me at the launch that this cask was kept in an oddly warm and dry warehouse, where alcohol evaporates at a much slower rate.
At $6,350, Glenury Royal is also the most expensive of these first bottles, and the price will have been closely considered. Diageo will not want these clogging up the Justerini & Brooks website alongside mispriced Prima & Ultima bottles, nor do they want to leave money on the table by underselling them.
This Glenury Royal is unlikely to see the 2,000% value gains that some of those early Port Ellen and Brora bottlings have achieved, but it’s notable that the last time Diageo released an ‘oldest ever’ malt (The Singleton 54 Year Old in 2021), it was priced at £28,850 ($39,000). You can still buy one today.
Other releases, like the Blair Athol 1991 and Talisker 1991, feel relatively accessible at $900 and $1,100, respectively, and reaffirm a sense that there has been a significant change in both presentation and pricing strategy. These bottlings are ultra-premium, no doubt, but there is a refreshing whiff of understatement about them.
Gunn says the simplicity of design is deliberate. “The intention was to create something simple and elegant that reflects both the heritage of the distilleries and the individuality of each rare whisky,” he says.
“The design takes inspiration from Scotland’s landscape, featuring the geographical coordinates of each distillery. The approach is to highlight each whisky’s character and story in a way that feels timeless and considered, featuring a bespoke granite stone stopper and a second skin made of 100% paper, designed to be light in both weight and footprint.”
Some of the old guardrails are still in place. You’ll have to register with DLG’s private client team to get a bottle. For a release like Caol Ila 1983, with 318 bottles at $3,000 each, you’ll likely find them out in the wild eventually, but Clynelish 1983 (160 bottles) may disappear into collections without touching the shelves. That is partly due to its collectability, but also to the fact that it’s the standout liquid among the five.
Clynelish 1983
42-Year-Old | 49.5% ABV
Price: $4,000 (ex tax) | £3,600 (incl tax)
Blair Athol 1991
34-Year-Old | 50.8% ABV
Price: $900 (ex tax) | £800 (incl tax)
Caol Ila 1983
42-Year-Old | 56.4% ABV
Price: $3,000 (ex tax) | £2,700 (incl tax)
Talisker 1992
33-Year-Old | 60.1% ABV
Price: $1,300 (ex tax) | £1,200 (incl tax)
Glenury Royal 1970
55-Year-Old | 62.4% ABV
Price: $6,350 (ex tax) | £5,700 (incl tax)
To register your interest in Diageo Rare Series, visit justerinis.com
