The Balmain creative director joins Master Blender Dr Emma Walker for Couture Expression–a four-part, season-inspired release–with each blend housed in a Baccarat crystal decanter and priced at about US$20,000 a bottle. Only one complete set is coming to Singapore
Johnnie Walker’s new ultra-luxury platform, Vault, opens its doors with a statement of intent: a two-part collaboration with Olivier Rousteing, launching first with Couture Expression, four limited blends charting a sensorial journey through Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. Conceived in an “atelier” beneath Johnnie Walker Princes Street, Rousteing’s fashion vernacular meets Dr Emma Walker’s blending artistry, drawing on a library of 500 rare, aged, and ghost whiskies to translate mood, texture, and time into liquid form.
Each expression begins with the same rarefied “heart”, anchored by ghost whiskies from Brora and Port Dundas, then pushed in different directions through proportion, texture, and seasonal accents. The first of the collection, Spring, is floral and refreshing, lifted by a 1985 Cragganmore, a rarely seen 1977 Caledonian, and the mineral poise of a 1978 Port Ellen. Next up, Summer goes exuberant and tropical with an experimental Cardhu Wine Cask Finish, a luminous 1990 Clynelish, and the ripeness of a 1988 Benrinnes.
Fall turns introspective and textural, weaving in an experimental Teaninich chocolate malt over Port Ellen smoke, while Winter is the deepest and most contemplative of the collection, dialling up Islay malts from Port Ellen and Brora, with a mulled-wine sweetness drawn again from the 1988 Benrinnes.
Presentation is as couture as the liquid within. Each whisky is decanted into a square Baccarat crystal bottle (an elegant nod to Alexander Walker’s late-19th-century silhouette), and draped in metallic armour–gold, silver, rose gold, and metallic–that reads like silk in motion. The sculptural wing stopper extends the brand’s ‘Keep Walking’ ethos into flight, a Rousteing finish that turns the decanter into an objet d’art destined for the top shelf of any serious collection.
And of course, scarcity befits the concept. Globally released in May, just 25 bottles of each season is available worldwide, with only one complete four-bottle set reserved for Singapore at a collector’s price of roughly US$20,000 per bottle. Consider it whisky as high fashion: a study in line, form, and emotion, executed with the kind of precision that couture and masterful blending share.
