Charles Leclerc spoke to MONO Malaysia ahead of the Malaysian release

Most people meet a whisky at the very end of its story: the pour, the first sip, the taste. It captures the moment but misses everything holding it up. Years spent resting in casks, decisions made long before anyone tastes the result and a blender's judgement about what a spirit will become a decade or more from now. What reaches the glass is simply the visible end of something that takes years to build.

When Charles Leclerc set out to make his first whisky with Chivas Regal, it was that hidden stretch of time that struck him most. He describes speaking to people who spend 12 or 18 years waiting to find out what a Longmorn, matured in a sherry cask, will actually taste like. What ends up in the bottle is only possible because of everything that came before it.

Chivas Regal

"It's just super interesting to see that these people have been waiting for so long before actually trying it," he says.

Whisky was new territory for him, but the impulse to understand something unfamiliar is, by his own account, fairly typical.

"I'm a very creative person and a very curious person. I like to discover new things. I like to meet new people, and luckily with what I do, I get to travel a lot as well. So that helps me also to meet completely new people, to get to know new cultures, new ways of thinking, the new tastes, and that's super, super interesting."

Which is why this was never going to be a name printed on someone else's whisky.

A NUMBER AND A CHALLENGE

Chivas Regal

here was no existing bottle waiting for an endorsement. Leclerc, Global Brand Ambassador for Chivas Regal, approached Master Blender Sandy Hyslop and challenged him to create something new. A bold new expression built entirely around his vision. He also had one non-negotiable at the end of it. Sixteen.

Chivas Regal 16 Limited-Edition is the first 16 year old expression in the brand's history, bringing together 16 exceptional whiskies each aged at least 16 years. Exploring several whiskies during the creation process, Leclerc gravitated towards the rich complexity of sherry cask matured Longmorn single malt and the blend was built outwards from there.

The number has followed him for as long as he can remember. Born on the 16th of October, he has carried it through his life and career. Sixteen whiskies, sixteen years. The arithmetic was never arbitrary. Before committing, he went to Scotland, watching how the work is actually done and only then chose his blend and set the final challenge: to craft it as a 16 year old whisky.

"Going to Scotland, seeing the distilleries, understanding the obsession behind every cask inspired me to create my own blend. Chivas Regal and I share the same belief that the standard you set today is just the starting point. I pushed Sandy to go further. He pushed me to think differently. Chivas Regal 16 felt like the natural next step in our partnership, creating something truly extraordinary together."

THE DETAIL NOBODY SEES

So what stayed with Leclerc after his time at the distilleries? For him, the answer came quickly.

"Whether it's in my profession or in the whisky… the smallest detail makes the difference when you are speaking about Chivas Regal, which are the very best at what they do," he says. "It's crazy the amount of detail they go into in order to make sure that the product is exactly the way they envisioned it."

It is a standard written into every stage of the process: the choice of cask, the years each whisky is left to rest, the precise proportions in which 16 different whiskies are brought together. None of it is visible in the finished bottle, yet all of it is decisive.

His second answer is the more interesting one.

Chivas Regal

"There's a lot of intuition also in the whisky world, to have the right intuition that maybe in this particular cask after 12 or 18 years old the whisky will have a particular taste that is unique."

Intuition, in his telling, isn't a gift. It's accumulated. "I think your intuition gets better when you have a lot of experience," he adds, then points to the obvious proof. "Sandy is the perfect example. He's been with Chivas for 40 years or something like that, which is quite crazy. So he knows everything about it."

It is the kind of knowledge that can't be rushed. A blender learns to read what a cask is going to become years before it gets there, built on decades of nosing, tasting and remembering. Hyslop's career is proof of that, and it was that experience Leclerc leaned on as the blend took shape.

Hyslop's own account of working with him is unusually blunt for a partnership of this kind.

"Charles didn't just put his name to this. He was in the room, making decisions, pushing back. He gravitated toward the character that defines Chivas Regal: rich, layered, built with real depth. What we've created together is a blend that's unmistakably his and unmistakably ours."

WHY CHIVAS

Chivas Regal

The house has been at this since 1909, when Chivas Regal launched as the original luxury blended Scotch whisky. Strathisla distillery in Scotland remains its spiritual home; today the brand exports to more than 100 countries and sells more than 4.5 million nine-litre cases every year. Blending itself was pioneered by the founding brothers, James and John Chivas, in nineteenth-century Scotland.

For Leclerc, the draw was less the length of that history than what the brand does with it.

"What I love about Chivas is their brand values. The fact that they have such a long history in the whisky world, but that they remember their heritage, but at the same time, they try and push boundaries."

Leclerc and Hyslop presented Chivas Regal 16 together for the first time in Miami, in an intimate conversation retracing the decisions that shaped it: the moves that challenged them, the choices that defined it, and how a shared philosophy shaped what is now in the bottle.

IN THE GLASS

Chivas Regal

On the nose, the Chivas Regal 16 Limited-Edition combines sweet mandarin slices and juicy raisins with manuka honey and subtle violet cream chocolates, alongside luscious sticky toffee pudding, cinnamon bon bons and almond croissants.

On the palate, homemade orange marmalade served with freshly baked apple cake leads into toasted oak and dark toffee, laden with warming cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger spice, and a hint of hazelnut. The finish is rich, velvety and spiced.

It is a whisky built for sitting with, which is more or less how its co-creator spends his time away from work. Off duty, the curiosity turns quiet.

"Music, chess and padel, probably these are the three activities that I do the most."

He bought the piano during the pandemic and largely taught himself to play; it has outlasted the rest, and he has since released several compositions of his own.

"I love piano and actually it's something that I like to play quite often whenever I've got some free time in order to disconnect from the hectic life of travelling the world, even though I love what I do," he says.

What's left goes to the people who predate all of it. His family, his friends, his wife Alexandra, and Leo, the long-haired dachshund with a following of his own, famous enough that the breed now arrives with his name attached. Time spent, in his words, "to connect with the people that know me the most and the best."

Set that against a few days in a distillery and the pattern is hard to miss. The same curiosity, the same patience, the same attention to the small things.

Which, in the end, is what Chivas Regal 16 is made of. A decision made on feel, backed by everything learned before it, and then the long wait to see it through. Sixteen whiskies, sixteen years and a blend that is, in Hyslop's words, unmistakably his and unmistakably ours.

Chivas Regal 16-Year-Old will be available in Malaysia from 1 October onwards (RRP RM 425) and can be purchased from the official Pernod Ricard Malaysia Shopee store.

*For non-Muslims aged 21 and above only. Please enjoy Chivas Regal responsibly and never drink and drive.