ONE 8 NINE
The Legend of Hou Yi
A 36 Year Old Macallan
A Story Told in Glass
This exceptional 1988 Macallan carries with it the ancient Chinese legend of Hou Yi, the divine archer who saved the earth from ten blazing suns. According to the legend, Hou Yi shot down nine of the suns, leaving one to sustain life, before receiving an elixir of immortality as a reward. His devotion to his wife, Chang’e, and the tragedy that followed became one of China’s most enduring stories of courage, sacrifice and eternal love.
It was this rich mythology that inspired the imagery across the bottle, with the story brought together through an intricate engraving that travels continuously around the glass.
Engraving a Story Around the Bottle
Unlike a design confined to one face of the bottle, the imagery on this piece extends all the way around the glass, creating a continuous visual narrative.
This presented a considerable technical challenge. Maintaining the detail, alignment and flow of the engraving across the entire circumference required careful planning and precision. Giles Lawson Johnston and his team took on the challenge, bringing the complex design to life through specialist sandblasting techniques.
The result is a bottle that reveals new details from every angle, allowing the story of Hou Yi to unfold as the viewer moves around the piece.
Gold, Silver & Glass
The finishing of the piece marked an important moment in Giles’ work.
For the first time, both gold and silver inlay were brought together on the same bottle. The contrasting precious-metal details were carefully applied to the engraved areas, adding definition and depth to the imagery while emphasising key elements within the story.
The combination of the two metals against the glass gives the engraving a distinctive quality — changing subtly with the light and revealing different details as the bottle is viewed from different angles.
A Rare Macallan
Behind the craftsmanship is a remarkable piece of whisky history.
Distilled on 1 December 1988, this Macallan was matured for 36 years in a sherry octave cask, before being released as a single cask expression. Only 36 bottles were produced, making the bottle itself an exceptionally rare foundation for a unique piece of engraved glass.
Rather than simply presenting the whisky, the commission transforms the bottle into something that can be appreciated as an object of craftsmanship in its own right — bringing together a historic spirit, an ancient story and the contemporary Scottish tradition of engraved glass.
The Legend, Etched in Glass
The story of Hou Yi has endured for generations through its themes of bravery, sacrifice and love. Here, that story has been translated into glass through a demanding combination of design, engraving and precious-metal inlay.
For Giles Lawson Johnston and his team, the piece represents the possibilities of engraved glass — taking an ambitious design and finding a way to make it work across an entire bottle.
GILES LAWSON JOHNSTON × MACALLAN
An ancient legend, brought to life through the art of glass.