Is this London’s greatest hotel whisky collection?
The whisky room at The Londoner
Hidden beneath Leicester Square, The Londoner has built one of the capital’s most remarkable whisky collections – from antique Scotch and ghost distilleries to ultra-rare Japanese drams
Leicester Square is not where you expect to find one of London’s great whisky destinations. You expect tourists, chain restaurants and theatre crowds, not a hidden whisky room full of some of the rarest bottles in the country.
Yet tucked away inside The Londoner, the five-star hotel that opened on the south-west corner of Leicester Square in 2021, is a collection that could rival almost any luxury hotel in London.
The whisky wall
The hotel itself is slick and modern, all dark marble, polished brass and contemporary art. Rooms start at around £500 a night and climb quickly into four figures for suites, but they are stylish and surprisingly calm considering the chaos outside.
Hidden away behind an unmarked door is The Whisky Room, a low-lit private space lined with banquettes and a floor to ceiling wall of whisky locked behind a glass cabinet. The room is intimate with just a smattering of low tables, and that alluring wall of whisky is divided by experience level.
The concept is simple. The bottom shelves are for the curious newcomer. The higher you go, the rarer, older and more expensive the bottles become. It is effectively a whisky ladder, from accessible drams to incredible rare bottles.
“The bottom row is Discovery,” explained Chris Li, from the hotel’s whisky team during a tasting. “Then we have Accomplished, which is much more rare in terms of age, finish and style. Then Prestige, and the top ones are Rare.”
And rare they are indeed. The hotel worked with specialist retailers the Whisky Exchange as well as private collectors to build the range and there are bottles here that are almost impossible to find open and ready to drink, elsewhere in London.
There are ghost distilleries such as Ladyburn and Port Ellen, there are antique American bottlings, there are old Japanese whiskies from Karuizawa, Hanyu and Yamazaki, and even a Mammoth Cave 1903.
“That is the oldest whisky in the collection,” says Shivangi Purohit, the hotel’s whisky expert said, pointing towards the Mammoth Cave. One of the great strengths of the room is that these bottles are not just there to look at. Everything is available by the dram, either in 50ml pours or in smaller 10ml or 15ml tasting measures such as the 15ml flight of Glenfiddich’s time series, which includes a taster of the 30, 40 and 50 year olds and is priced at £1,225.
Where else in London can you taste a Karuizawa from 1967, a 40-year-old Ladyburn, a Rosebank 21-year-old or a bottle distilled before the First World War without having to buy the whole bottle?
The pricing is predictably steep at the top end. The Macallan 1938, bottled in 1981, costs around £3,000 for a single serve. Among the standout bottles in the room is a Karuizawa 1967 aged 42 years, sitting high on the shelves like a museum piece.
During my tasting, I tried three very different whiskies. The first was Kaiyö, a lightly peated, Japanese whisky matured in the incredibly rare Japanese Mizunara oak cask before then spending several months maturing out at sea picking up saline and maritime notes.
“When you smell the whisky, you will smell a little bit of jasmine, citrus flavours and also coastal air,” said Li. “This whisky has gone through ocean maturation.”
Slightly peaty, with a light smokiness on the finish, it also had a definite minerality to it, along with citrus, black tea and a touch of salt. The maritime ageing process could easily sound like marketing nonsense, but in the glass it really did feel coastal.
The second dram was Chivas Regal 25. If the Kaiyö was all sea spray and smoke, this was Christmas in liquid form.
On the nose it was all orange peel, chocolate and sherry sweetness. On the palate it opened into winter fruits, raisins, vanilla and Christmas cake, with a creamy texture and a very long finish.
The third was perhaps the most surprising, a single cask bottling of 10 year old Glenfiddich produced for the Century Club, the Soho institution just around the corner. Even among all the rare whisky and closed distilleries, there was something charming about finding a bottle made specifically for one of London’s oldest private members’ clubs.
The rooftop bar, 8 at The Londoner has one of the capital’s most extensive Japanese whisky collections by the dram
Elsewhere in the hotel, the rooftop bar, 8 at The Londoner, is incredible in its own right. The bar has built its menu around Japanese whisky, with a huge range of offerings with prices ranging from £16 for a Suntory Toki to more than £1,700 for the rarest bottles. The whisky list includes Yamazaki 18 at £150 for 50ml, Hakushu 25 at £650, Hibiki 30 at £600 and Yamazaki Mizunara 18 at £800. Most striking of all are two Karuizawas available by the dram: the Karuizawa 37 Year Old Pearl Geisha 1990, with notes of leather and liquorice, and the Karuizawa 38 Year Old Pearl Geisha 1985, all black pepper, dark chocolate and oak. Both cost just under £2,000 for a 50ml pour.
The cocktail menu is just as strong. A standout is the Wagu, a rich, oily and deeply savoury drink that somehow managed to be both decadent and balanced.
What makes The Londoner interesting is that it isn’t pretending to be an old-school whisky hotel in the mould of Gleneagles or The Balmoral. It is modern, design-led and very much a London luxury hotel first, yet hidden away beneath the polished surfaces and rooftop cocktails is a whisky programme that is genuinely exceptional.
Whether it is the best hotel whisky collection in London is open to debate. The Connaught, The Balmoral, The Rosewood and The Stafford are among those who certainly have a claim. But few hotels in the capital can offer quite this combination of Japanese whisky, antique bottles, ghost distilleries and access by the dram. For whisky lovers, it is one of London’s great hidden rooms.
Barley was a guest of www.thelondoner.com
