Glenfiddich seals a full-size Aston Martin F1 car inside a giant bottle

A full-size Aston Martin Formula One car is now sealed inside a giant replica of a Glenfiddich bottle in London's King's Cross. The installation, called 'Car in a Bottle', celebrates the latest release in the continuing partnership between the Scottish distiller and the Aston Martin Formula One Team.

The bottle behind the installation is Glenfiddich's new 16-Year-Old Limited Edition Release No.2, bottled at 43% and carrying an RRP of £75 (US$100) per 700ml bottle. It is the second numbered release the two partners have produced together.

Tastings of the whisky are available to viewers each day between 11.30am and 8.30pm. The dram can also be ordered at nearby bar Booking Office 1869, giving visitors a chance to try it without buying a full bottle.

What is in the bottle

The expression is matured across five cask types: first-fill Bourbon barrels, Port pipes, oloroso Sherry casks, wine casks and fino Sherry butts. Tasting notes point to rich stewed fruits, marzipan and polished leather, lifted by buttery toffee and dry oak tannin.

Glenfiddich malt master Brian Kinsman framed the point of the build in cask terms. Behind every Aston Martin Formula One car, he said, lie hundreds of small decisions refined into a seamless whole, and whisky-making runs on the same logic.

Each cask type contributes its own character, texture and depth, Kinsman added, but the art of the final piece lies not in the components. It lies in bringing them together in a way that feels balanced and instinctively right, the idea the installation brings to life.

How Dentsu X built it

The bottle itself is not the distiller's work. Marketing and design agency Dentsu X took around six months to develop the concept and 650 hours to build it, turning Glenfiddich's round bottle into a structure that could house the car while staying recognisable.

Matthew Smith of Dentsu X called it one of the most ambitious projects the agency has worked on, evolving from a creative thought experiment. To the agency's knowledge, nothing like it has been done before, and specialist fabrication techniques, craftsmanship and modern engineering all went into it.

Smith described the challenge as transforming an iconic round bottle into a structure able to hold a full-size Formula One car, while remaining true to the design buyers recognise on a shelf. Over six months, the team combined those techniques to bring the concept to life.

A partnership that began in 1959

The first collaboration between Glenfiddich and Aston Martin was a 65-year-old single malt distilled in 1959, the year the car maker made its Formula One debut. The William Grant & Sons-owned distillery has since built the tie-up into an ongoing global partnership.

Several expressions have followed, including a 19-year-old bottling for travel retail. The new 16-year-old belongs to that same programme and is now available from UK retailers, including Selfridges and JPHA, as well as by the dram at the King's Cross bar.

Adrian Newey, managing technical partner at the Aston Martin Formula One Team, offered a view on the pairing. What surprised him most, he said, was the balance between artistry and engineering, and how much engineering goes into achieving consistency without removing individuality.

Whisky, Newey added, must keep its personality rather than become over-engineered. It is not a bottle of spring water, he said, and it needs the same individuality the racing team chases, a shared pursuit the installation is built to celebrate.

Aston Martin is a marque we know well from our garage coverage. It features in our ranking of British car brands, where its largest shareholder is Lawrence Stroll's Yew Tree Consortium, alongside Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Geely and Mercedes-Benz.

In our guide to the best classic cars, the Aston Martin DB5 of 1964 leads the list ahead of the Ferrari 250 GTO and the Jaguar E-Type, valued at $990,000. In February 2026, Glenfiddich also unveiled a refreshed look for its core range single malts.