Spectra, unveiled in 2020, extended the Cipher-Code conceit into a triptych. Three bottles were sold as a set, each deliberately unidentified, with an accompanying app that invited drinkers to describe what they found and compare notes with other purchasers. The distillery's proposition was that flavour exists on a spectrum rather than within neat cask-driven categories — hence the name.
One can admire the playfulness without being entirely persuaded by it. The Glenlivet's commercial success since the mid-nineteenth century has rested on consistency and a recognisable house character: gentle, fruit-forward Speyside malt of the kind that Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort are said to have requested during their 1848 tour of the Highlands. The Spectra bottlings, stripped of context, still taste like The Glenlivet — which rather suggests that the blindfold is optional.
All three expressions are bottled at forty per cent, which limits their ability to reveal subtleties that a cask-strength release might have surfaced. As a tasting exercise for groups, the set has its amusements. As a serious statement from a 200-year-old distillery, it feels slightly under-dressed. Enjoyable in company; unlikely to change minds.
