Top Scot vs. Donald Trump
By John Geddes - Friday, December 7, 2012 - 0 Comments
Jeff J Mitchell/Getty
An amusingly oddball story this week pits Donald Trump against a Scottish farmer named Michael Forbes. The distinctively coiffed American tycoon is fuming over Forbes being named “Top Scot,” an annual prize sponsored by the distillers of Glenfiddich whisky, for his refusal to sell his little piece of Aberdeenshire property to Trump for a controversial golf course development.
By way of retribution, Trump is vowing never to sell any products from William Grant & Sons, the company that owns Glenfiddich, at his resorts. He calls the award “a terrible embarrassment to Scotland.” In fact, Scotland seems increasingly proud of Forbes. And that’s largely because of the way he is depicted in an acclaimed documentary called You’ve Been Trumped, which chronicles how, in making his golf course, Trump marred an environmentally sensitive seaside and clashed with local landowners.
The film’s British director is Anthony Baxter and its producer is Richard Phinney, who happens to be Canadian. (Full disclosure, he’s an old friend of mine.) I called Phinney at his home in Kingston, Ont. to ask about the latest burst of publicity, and some more serious issues.
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50-year-old Glenfiddich up for auction. The reserve? $50,000
By Jessica Allen - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 at 4:23 PM - 0 Comments
It’s not often you see a Brinks truck parked outside an LCBO guarded by three men in kilts armed with bagpipes and a drum. But then it’s not often the cargo is a 55-year-old bottle of scotch heralded as one of the rarest–and most expensive–single malts in the world.
The bottle of Glenfiddich Janet Sheed Roberts 50 Year Old is one of 15 filled with the golden-hued spirit that the distillery’s then-Malt Master Gordon Ross deposited into an oak barrel on New Year’s Eve 1955. The occasion? To honour “Wee Janie,” granddaughter of William Grant on her 110th birthday. Eleven of the bottles, which took four days to craft from hand-blown glass, will be auctioned off with proceeds going to charity. The sale of six has already raised more than $340,000. (The last was picked up by a U.S. buyer in March for $94,000 U.S.) Four bottles will remain with the family at the distillery.
The bottle of Janet Sheed Roberts 55 Year Old was carried from the Brinks truck into the Summerhill LCBO. Of course it was for ogling, not for sampling.
Instead we tried four other Glenfiddich single malts, starting with a 12-year-old.
