Changing of the guard at Compass Box
Compass Box Whisky founder John Glaser announced a few days ago his decision to step down as a director of the company and appoint his successor.
As announced by the Compass Box developer, he is set to leave the company at the end of April. The creation of future editions of whisky under the Compass Box banner will be handled by James Saxon, introduced by Glaser in 2011 at a whisky tasting in St. Andrews, who joined the company in 2019.
John Glaser himself has not revealed what his future plans are, or whether they are in any way related to whiskey. He remains a faithful supporter of Compass Box Whisky's success, he says, and a shareholder in the company.
In 2000, John Glaser, by then serving as marketing director of the Johnnie Walker brand, decided to set out on his own to conquer the world of whisky. He took the course on little-known and little-appreciated waters - his first edition, now historic, was the grain blended whisky Hedonism.
Released in 2000, Hedonism was the first whisky to be marketed to the general public as a blend of two or more grain whiskies, or so-called blended grain whisky. Thanks to the unparalleled quality of the distillates used, as well as their selection to create a whisky that is multilayered and interesting, it has blazed a trail for Scotch grain whiskies, which, since the success of the first batch of Hedonism, have been bottled more and more eagerly and more often.
Glaser-led Compass Box Whisky soon released further editions of blended whiskies, which are a couplet of extremely carefully selected distillates, establishing a completely new quality for this category of spirits. On the market appeared bearing tasteful labels based on classical inspirations Asyla, Eleuthera, Peat Monster, Oak Cross and many others.
John Glaser pioneered transparency in the Scottish distilling industry. His recipes have been known and published, starting with the first edition of Hedonism. As an innovator, he sometimes came into conflict with the conservative approach to Scotch whisky production. An example is the Spice Tree blended malt whisky, the first batch of which was matured in barrels composed partly of French oak staves. This practice has been deemed unacceptable for Scotch whisky by the Scotch Whisky Association. As a result of the SWA's intervention, Glaser was forced to withdraw from this idea, and subsequent batches of this liquor were matured in barrels with homogeneous staves, but with French oak bottoms.
How the future of this innovative project will turn out, but already without its initiator and previous leader - we will see. We can only keep our fingers crossed, as it would be a shame if such an interesting player in the Scotch whisky market were to suddenly disappear from it, or drastically lower its flights. We will also follow with interest the fate of the founder of Compass Box Whisky, to whom we wholeheartedly wish good luck, and we hope that his further career will be related to whisky, and that in one way or another he will imprint himself on our palates.
Meanwhile, the House of Whisky Online offers a whole range of whisky editions that came out of John Glaser's lab. We invite you to visit.
[10.03.2024 / photo: Compass Box Whisky]