Housed in a vivid green flagon adorned with golden accents inspired by the Brazilian flag, this limited-edition expression is both visually striking and sensorially complex. The presentation box itself also nods to Rio’s dramatic cityscape, setting the stage for the experience within.
Crafted by Royal Salute Master Blender Sandy Hyslop, the whisky delivers a rich and fruity profile punctuated by the creamy sweetness of vanilla and coconut. Expect a vibrant nose of poached pears, charred pineapple, and toasted oak, followed by a palate that dances with notes of honeydew melon, tangy green apple, toffee, and white chocolate, subsequently rounded off with the warming spice of cinnamon and cardamom. Aged in part in first-fill casks from Braeval Distillery, the blend is layered, refined, and unapologetically bold, much like the city that inspired it.
To mark the Malaysian debut of the Royal Salute 21 Year Old Rio de Janeiro Polo Edition, an unforgettable celebration was held at The Banjaran Hotsprings Retreat, a lush sanctuary nestled within the limestone hills of Ipoh. In partnership with Auto Bavaria, guests embarked on a scenic journey from Kuala Lumpur to Ipoh in the all-electric BMW i5, setting the tone for a weekend of elegance and discovery.
The festivities began with an exclusive polo clinic at BP Polo Club led by none other than Royal Salute’s World Polo Ambassador Malcolm Borwick, before transitioning to an evening of sensory indulgence. Against the dramatic backdrop of Jeff’s Cellar, guests were treated to a six-course menu inspired by the flavours of Brazil, paired with Royal Salute’s finest expressions, including the Rio edition. A vibrant Brazilian carnival-inspired performance brought colour and rhythm to the evening, perfectly echoing the spirit of Rio and the layered complexity of the new blend.
We sat down with Malcolm Borwick, Royal Salute’s World Polo Ambassador and a familiar face on the international polo circuit, to discuss this dynamic new release, the enduring synergy between polo and whisky, and why Rio holds a special place in his heart.
The Royal Salute 21 Year Old Rio de Janeiro Polo Edition celebrates one of the most vibrant cities in the world. What story does this edition tell, and how does it connect with the spirit of polo in Rio?
Malcolm Borwick (MB): All the Polo editions are embodied to reflect what I perceive that city or that destination to be from memories of me playing polo there, or from international perceptions of that area. On that note, Rio is a city that is full of life, colour, noise, and laughter.
You’ve got the conflict between the beach and the mountains. You’re going up these incredibly steep cliffs, and you’ve obviously got the Redeemer looking over the whole of the bay. What we wanted to try and do is create that storytelling in a product. Sandy Hyslop, our master blender, has done an incredible job of reflecting those images and those ideas in our minds into a product with the Rio Polo edition.
Royal Salute is a whisky steeped in heritage and refinement. How do you feel the Polo Editions reflect the evolution of modern luxury while still paying homage to tradition?
MB: There are two parts to that. Royal Salute is a whisky that was made for a queen in 1953 and that’s the origin of the brand. The two flagons that were given to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, and Prince Philip at the time for her coronation are the same-shaped flagons that we still have on the whisky now. That hasn’t changed.
Where we’ve evolved as a brand is in the use of colours. We changed the tones away from the very traditional colours that Royal Salute used to represent. We changed the pack to tell a story and integrated digital media into the pack itself. If you scan the QR code on the packs, it brings up all of the videos and footage that we’ve made around the brand, which is a really nice way of telling a modern story, but keeping the core essence of Royal Salute, which is a heritage brand.
As someone who has played polo across the globe, what do you think the geography and cultural energy of a place like Rio brings to the creative process of whisky craftsmanship?
MB: I suppose it’s a little bit of trying to create the conflict or juxtaposition between two things. Polo is played on a dead flat surface, but the mountains of Rio come straight up behind it. It’s a lot of trying to reflect that difference and find that contrast between the place and this really consistent, incredibly complex drink, but made dynamic.
For instance, there is a huge difference between our Signature editions and the Limited editions. That’s the sort of yin and yang, and two sides to the story that we try and reflect in our whisky.
You’ve been a Royal Salute World Polo Ambassador since 2009. How has the partnership evolved over the years, and how does it feel to now be part of this global storytelling through whisky?
MB: We started with a concept to strengthen the relationship between polo and the whisky. It was never meant to be just for the benefit of the whisky or just for the benefit of polo. It had to be a symbiotic relationship. Royal Salute spent many years supporting small polo events around the world, like in Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea, and the Dominican Republic. Being involved in that mutually beneficial relationship has been an incredible honour.
The sport has also changed dramatically. The whisky, the way we present the whisky, likewise, has evolved. Firstly, when I started working with Royal Salute, I really wanted to break away from the brand image of the old man at the bar smoking a cigar with a whisky in hand. Whisky has always been known to be an old man’s drink, but I wanted to change that. I wanted to have a 35 to 45 year-old lady drinking whisky at sunset. That was my encapsulation of where I wanted to go with this collection, because I wanted to make it more accessible.
When I started working with Royal Salute, we also weren’t allowed to do cocktails. I fought for it and said we have to do cocktails because it’s an introduction to the brand, and for people to get to know the product. It creates these moments of fun. That’s an evolution in itself. And from what I’ve seen around the world and the way people react to the coloured packaging and to the way the brand is presented, I hope we’ve been quite successful.
You’ve played in some of the most iconic and exotic locations in the world, from St. Moritz to Shanghai. What’s a destination that truly took your breath away, both on and off the field?
MB: One that immediately jumps to mind, both for sporting and aesthetic reasons, is the very first match that I got to play for the full England team in South Africa. It’s Plettenburg Bay on the Garden Route of South Africa.
The polo field is probably only one kilometre from the beach, but it’s 800 metres up in the mountains, and you’ve got this incredible polo field that’s cut into the hills. You can see all the way down over the coast, yet you’re playing up in the mountains. And for me, putting the England shirt on in a test match for the first time, playing in that incredible scenery, is a memory that jumps straight out.
It’s one of those things everybody dreams about when you get into professional sport. When you get into a sport, especially in the era I started, you never dreamt about earning this and that. You dreamt about putting the shirt on for your country, and for me, getting that opportunity to play for England against South Africa with a stadium full of people watching, that was the reason I started playing the sport.
In many ways, polo is a passport to the world’s most exclusive circles. What have your travels taught you about the intersection of culture, sport, and hospitality?
MB: Immediately, what springs to mind is this Rudyard Kipling poem, and if you’ve never read that poem, it’s about walking with kings and queens, but not losing your common touch. And polo is this really unique sport where, one minute, you’re having a dinner like you were last night and having an incredible experience in a very luxurious environment, and the next morning you’re going to the stables to work with the grooms and the blacksmiths and the vets and your teammates.
Having the ability to bridge between those two worlds, you have to just be very grateful for every experience and understand that you have to earn it. You have to work hard and you can’t just expect to turn up with all this laid on a plate. So, I think, that for me, is the passport to the world, and it opens your mind up because there are brilliant people in every walk of life, in every part of the globe. No one is better than another, but you have to be able to interact with both groups of people simultaneously, if you want to get the best out of the sport.
With your heritage rooted in both England and Scotland, and your career tied closely to Argentina, what does ‘home’ mean to you now?
MB: Well, home for me is in Elizabeth and where my children are. I’ve got three great kids, and home is where they are, where they’re safe. Having travelled so much from when I was 18, home now has a slightly different feeling for me.
Personally, I’m very at home in Argentina. I spent a lot of my early playing career down there in Argentina. My wife and I had our first house down there. I speak Spanish, and it’s a country that I’m extremely comfortable in, so that does feel very does feel like home when you’re there for a period of time. I suppose home has to be a safe environment, and that’s where you want your core family who’s supporting you 24/7 to be.
Royal Salute celebrates craftsmanship and patience, which are qualities that are also essential to being a top-level athlete. How do you personally define the art of living well?
MB: The patience that you talked about, the time that it takes to make a product, is the same patience and dedication it requires to perform at an elite level. So, our whiskies are 21 years old. They sit in Scotland for 21 years in casks. We nose 2,000 whiskies a week to create the blend for Royal Salute.
That’s a skill set that requires patience and experience, to get the best out of yourself as a professional sportsman or as a person in whatever walk of life you do. It takes a lot of self-knowledge. You’ve got to get to know what makes you operate better, and that takes time. You don’t know that when you’re 21 years old. You don’t know that because you’re still learning, and it takes patience to understand your body all the way through, to optimise your performance.
Unfortunately, it’s tragic that when our brains are in a position to do just that, our bodies are starting to fall apart. As they say, youth is wasted on the young. But yeah, that patience to get to that sweet spot where you can perform at an optimal level and understand yourself is the same it takes to create a product like Royal Salute.
If the Rio Polo Edition were a teammate on the field, how would you describe its playing style?
MB: When we talk about teammates, about how your character is reflected on the position you get in the field, your number one is your party boy, or party girl, who scores all the goal plays in front of field. Your number two is your very hard working journalist who never gets the credit for the work they do, but is always going to work and work right. Number three is your CEO of the business and the captain of the team who sits there and does the tactics. Finally, your number four is your solid defensive person.
I would say that the Rio de Janeiro Polo Edition is definitely the party boy – the number one. It’s loud, it’s gregarious, it’s fun. It’s all about the colour and the party. It’s a good teammate, but it’s definitely a number one.
If you could design your own dream Royal Salute Polo Edition, what city or country would you spotlight next, and why?
MB: I don’t do the actual whisky blending because that is Sandy Hyslop’s role, but I am involved in the conceptualisation of it and the storytelling behind it, because my signature is on the bottle. They have to be destinations that are significant either in my polo career or from what I perceive to be part of the journey of polo globally.
We’ve ticked off many destinations, like the Polo Estancia Edition for Argentina, the Jodhpur Edition for India, and the Miami Polo Edition from last year with the beautiful pinks and greens. With Rio, we chose it because it’s a country which punches very heavily at an international polo level, and not to mention, Rio is of course an iconic city. We’ve got a couple more surprises around the corner for the next edition for sure.
I want to promote polo in places that are not necessarily that well-promoted from a polo level. There’s a lot of polo to grow in Africa, for example. Places like Ghana and Nigeria are places that need a little bit of support from Royal Salute. Even the Dominican Republic has a really vibrant polo community. It’s part of my responsibility with Royal Salute to make sure we are supporting polo communities around the world. For me, it’s about what can Royal Salute do to put a spotlight on some of those places.
The Royal Salute 21-Year-Old Rio de Janeiro Polo Edition is available in limited quantities starting from RM1,060 at selected premium retail and liquor stores across West and East Malaysia, the official Pernod Ricard Malaysia Shopee store, as well as via direct purchase.
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