At Spago Dining Room atop Marina Bay Sands, the excitement was palpable for the global launch of Johnnie Walker Vault’s latest creation—the finale to the meeting of minds between Dr Emma Walker, Johnnie Walker’s master blender, and French fashion designer Olivier Rousteing.
A blue carpet walk took guests past the iconic Johnnie Walker Striding Man statue and towards a view of the Singapore skyline from 57 floors high. Inside the Spago Dining Room, the select group of guests comprised Johnnie Walker’s top VIP clients, Diageo’s senior management, plus a set of socialites and celebrities bringing star wattage—such as South Korea’s Lee Dong-Wook and Dara Park, Vietnam’s Tóc Tiên, Thailand’s Apo Wattanagitiphat, and Singapore’s Jamie Chua and Ed Russell.
Greeting them all with a beaming smile was Walker, one of the two creative forces who worked on the stunning collaboration with Rousteing for Johnnie Walker Vault. This partnership has yielded sublime releases, marrying unicorn whiskies to the fascinating story of Rousteing: his origins, journey, and philosophy that shot him to superstardom in the fashion sphere.
In spring of this year, the Johnnie Walker Vault debuted as a global invitation to experience the creation of a Scotch whisky blend entirely tailored to your taste. The experience is so called because it takes place in what was a former bank vault in Edinburgh—now Johnnie Walker House’s own private reserve, containing more than 500 precious whisky samples, drawn from Diageo’s incredible repository of more than 10 million casks spread across the Scottish landscape.
It was inside this very vault where Walker and Rousteing, as Johnnie Walker Vault’s first cultural collaborator, began discussions spanning the entirety of their lives, beyond their professional careers, and into the intricacies of Rousteing’s formative years. Despite a childhood in Bordeaux, Rousteing remembers family life spent with Johnnie Walker, with winters at his grandmother’s kitchen as his grandfather enjoyed his dram of Scotch. “Olivier was so open and honest about his background and his journey, and that made it possible for us to craft these wonderful whiskies,” Walker said. “That’s really what Johnnie Walker Vault is about—how we entwine our whiskies with people’s stories.”
The duo’s conversations, which ran the gamut of important dates and favourite songs, would then coalesce into two highlight significant drops: the first being the Johnnie Walker Vault Couture Expression unveiled ahead of this year’s Met Gala. This reveal showcased a collection of four custom whisky blends in Baccarat bottles topped by a stopper reminiscent of Balmain’s famous flared shoulders, a Rousteing haute couture signoff.
The second of the two, the Couture Blend, becomes the denouement to showcase the depth of the Johnnie Walker Vault programme, debuting in Singapore to the world. Across a four-course dinner by CUT and Spago’s executive chef Greg Bess, guests enjoyed the pairing of exceptional constituent whiskies sourced directly from Johnnie Walker’s vault that make up The Couture Blend. To go with the tuna and avocado tartare amuse-bouche was the Port Ellen of 1978. This unctuous, textured dram is characterised by whiffs of rock salt and buttery fudge, redolent with an incoming freshness of waves and minerality—properties that Walker said work perfectly as “seasoning” on the new Couture Blend.
Next came the Agnolotti and Japanese Ebisu pumpkin, with shaved white truffles and Parmigiano-Reggiano, and, with it, the Caledonian 1977 ghost whisky, produced at a distillery that once lay just west of Princes Street in Edinburgh. The “’77 ‘Cally”, as it is popularly known, offered a lighter style to the Port Ellen, carrying bursts of fruitiness, with soft, creamy edges. A sherry- and wine-cask-aged Cardhu special release was the next to be sampled. “We had to use Cardhu because it is the heart of Johnnie Walker whiskies,” Walker said. For her, the freshness and vibrancy (unmistakable Granny Smith apples) of the Cardhu adds an extra depth of flavour to the blend.
Soon enough, over a caramelised miso chocolate tart with crème fraîche ice cream, The Couture Blend made its appearance to Rousteing’s favourite song (David Bowie’s Starman). “What was important for us in this special whisky was to use some of our most progressive whiskies—the ones that really push the boundaries of flavour and challenge all the things that Scotch whisky should be,” Walker said. From luscious fruits and tropical notes, to an especially malty chocolate and coffee dimension from Teaninich, The Couture Blend is a decadent spread of the many component whiskies. It is what Walker describes as “classically Johnnie Walker but with something a little bit different as well”.
Following the launch, The Couture Blend was made available to the world as 1,500 individually numbered crystal decanters, personally designed by Rousteing. The blend is composed of 10 exceptional whiskies, including ghost whiskies from the long-closed Port Dundas and Caledonian distilleries, as well as many aged whiskies of more than 40 years to recall Rousting’s own milestone, who celebrates his 40th birthday this year. “Hopefully, it captures both the spirit of Johnnie Walker and Olivier,” Walker said in closing before the after-party at the kinetic Marquee Singapore. This Blue Label after-party would see the first instance of The Couture Blend in public, with high-energy rituals accompanying a trio of The Couture Blend paraded among the swath of partiers, a three-storey slide, and Marquee’s unmissable Ferris wheel.
Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the launch came over lunch the day after the launch. With Walker holding court, the gathered VIP clients and media guests were given a deep understanding of how she conceives new blends, alternately writing and devising spiderweb charts that grow outwards into stunning detail. From a base ‘flavour wheel’ of woody, malty, fresh, fruity, peaty, and spicy, the whisky begins to take on greater complexity: smoky, vanilla, meaty, sweet, and then into the specifics of raisins, moss, apples, coconut, tobacco, and even lapsang souchong. The result? A blend that is supremely greater than the sum of its parts, an artistry of whisky blending that has been the mainstay of Johnnie Walker whiskies since its founding in 1820. And, as Walker recounted, one of the most interesting responses she got from Rousteing himself was from a question about what the brand tagline of ‘Keep on Walking’ symbolised to him. His answer, short and succinct: “To keep on walking until I fly!”
