Rosewood London + Glenfiddich Present: THE TIME:CAPSULE

You only need another birthday to roll around to realise how quickly time can fly by and let’s face it, we can all be guilty of not slowing down to appreciate things more. Whether it’s waiting at a drive-thru or following your lost Deliveroo driver on the map with despair, it’s the age of convenience and whilst that has benefits, it also makes the idea of slowing down very appealing.

Encouraging people to do just that are Scotch icons Glenfiddich and luxury 5-star hotel Rosewood London, with Time:Capsule, a stylish terrace transformed into a fully immersive cocktail dining space. This is a place to saviour Glenfiddich whisky as it should be savoured and that’s by taking your time with it. The cosy interior welcomes you in, and visual projections paint the walls whilst you peruse a specialist menu created by Yann Bouvignies, the renowned head of mixology at Rosewood.

The versatility of Glenfiddich’s range is masterfully utilised in inventive concoctions like the 12-year-old blend with tonka and coffee, and roasted bee pollen, aloe vera and oloroso sherry. At the higher end of the whisky menu you’ll find the Time Re:Imagined collection including the 30-Year-Old Suspended Time and 40-Year-Old Cumulative Time boasting decades of flavour in one blissful sip. If anything displays the benefit of taking your time, it’s these drams. Order a glass from the Glenfidich Grand Series, and you’re in with the chance of winning a bottle of the 30-Year-Old alongside a stay at the Rosewood!

There’s even the Holborn Dining Room on hand to provide comforting dishes like Loch Duart smoked salmon rillettes with Exmoor caviar, hearty Game Pie and the ridiculously seductive blackberry and apple crumble with Glenfiddich infused custard.

The idyllic urban escape gives you all the time to relax in stunning sensory-stimulating surroundings and explore the world’s most awarded single malt Scotch neat, or at the heart of exquisite cocktails. Every detail has been considered to create the, ‘step in and slow down’ feeling, from the illuminated tunnel opening up into the courtyard to the evolving visuals.

The unique retreat will be open until the Spring so if you want to eye up the enticing menu already take a look here.

Words by Aidy Smith

Glenfiddich to Fuel Trucks with Whisky Waste

Does driving a car powered by whisky count as drunk driving…? The jury’s still out on that one, but one thing we know for certain is that a whisky waste powered car is on the horizon!

Making whisky can be surprisingly wasteful, with nearly 85% of the leftover grains and barley from the malting stage going to waste. Wastage is a huge problem in the food and drink industry, but major whisky producer Glenfiddich seems to be on the road to combatting their waste.

Though previously sold off as high-protein cattle feed, Glenfiddich is using its spent grains to create fuel for trucks. The grains are put through ‘anaerobic digestion’, a process in which bacteria break down organic matter and produce biogas. This biogas is what can be substituted for the harmful diesel. Using biogas instead of diesel or other fossil fuels cuts CO2 emissions by over 95% and reduces other harmful particulates and greenhouse gas emissions by up to 99% - now that’s cool. Each truck will displace up to 250 TONNES of CO2 annually!

Glenfiddich currently have four trucks running off this biogas, but plan to convert the other sixteen of their trucks to be biogas fuelled in the near future. At the moment, these trucks are only the ones transporting the spirit to be bottled but William Grant & Sons, Glenfiddich’s parent company, are looking to use the same biogas to power trucks that transport the whisky nationally.

William Grant & Sons have always proclaimed to be at the forefront of reducing carbon emissions in the whisky industry, and they hope to hit carbon net zero targets by 2040. Judging by the way things are going now, that doesn’t seem to be such a huge hurdle anymore.

Glenfiddich distillery director Stuart Watts (pictured above) told Reuters, “The thought process behind this was, ‘what can we do that’s better for us all?’”. This mindset is certainly one that is catching on around the drinks industry as we see more and more brands either utilising waste or becoming carbon neutral (even sometimes carbon negative!).

In Finland, even goose poop has been used to make beer! Check out this article to see how other companies are making their processes a bit more eco-friendly.