With His New Collaboration, Charles Leclerc Furthers His Connection to Number 16

As a Ferrari driver and one of Formula 1’s most carefully tracked figures, Charles Leclerc has spent more than a decade chasing hundredths of a second around circuits that punish anything less. Since 2018, the Monégasque has worn the number sixteen for every Formula 1 weekend of his career. In fact, Leclerc’s birthday falls on October 16; the number found him before the helmet did.

Now—under the guidance of Sandy Hyslop, Master Blender at Chivas Regal—Leclerc has put his name on Chivas Regal 16, a limited-edition, sixteen-year-old whisky aged in sherry casks. “Sixteen has been more than a number for my whole career,” Leclerc tells Surface. “Obviously, [because] it’s the day of my birth, it’s the first number, as a kid, that you kind of remember. Then, growing up, you use it on special occasions. It followed me through my career.”

What surprised him most about partnering with whisky, he says, was the volume of work hiding inside the liquid. “The complexity of it, I had no idea. The amount of attention to detail there is on every single Chivas Regal blend that is put out on the market. When I saw that, I was very, very attracted by the amount of passion they have and the attention to detail on every single thing that they were doing to get to the perfect blend,” he says. That’s what we did with Chivas Regal 16. “To start from scratch with an idea in mind, and to finish with a product like this one was super-cool.”

Chivas Regal 16 is the brand’s first sixteen-year-old age statement, and the first to put a sherry-cask matured Longmorn single malt whisky at the front of the blend. Leclerc gravitated to it without any industry vocabulary. “The good thing about being quite new to this world was that I arrived with an open mind,” he says. “I just chose what felt most natural and what I loved most—and that was the Longmorn that was matured in a sherry cask. It just had a very profound flavour that I really enjoyed. It stays in the mouth for a long time.”

“Then we started blending it with others until we ended up with the taste I wanted,” he adds. He took the lead on what the whisky should taste like before he took the lead on what the bottle should say. “I wanted a taste that was very unique. I think it was never done before, to have the sherry cask as the main expression of a Chivas whisky,” he says. “Then, trying to blend it with other expressions, that made sense to me.“

Leclerc flew to Scotland with his closest friends, walked them through the maturation cellars, and put glasses in their hands in the tasting room. “They had the full experience as well as me,” he says. “We all had the chance to basically blend all our favorite whiskies, and we came back home with a small bottle of it. For me, that was the foundation of the 16-year—with the advice and the direction of Sandy.”

Across the table from Leclerc throughout that process was Hyslop, who composed Chivas Regal 16 from sixteen different whiskies. “In my opinion, one of the richest expressions we’ve ever made in the history of the Chivas Regal family,” Hyslop tells Surface. The sherry cask that held the Longmorn is where the depth was built. “It brings that sweet, juicy raisin fruitiness, a little bit of ginger, a little bit of licorice.”

“I’m a very impatient person,” Leclerc says. “But the good thing is that Chivas’ team was straight away ready with whiskies that had already been maturing for sixteen years.” Leclerc took these and honed in on the selection, refinement, and standard-setting. “The most important thing for me is to get to the finished product, the perfect product, exactly the way we imagined it,” he adds. “So I challenged Sandy quite a lot.”

Hyslop tracks the time spent on this collaboration in cities. “The journey started in Monaco with Charles, to Strathisla in Scotland, and over here in Miami tonight for the launch,” he says. Four cities for one number.

“The Chivas team is around whenever I’ve got to celebrate a special moment with my family or my friends,” Leclerc says. “But music is also around. I love music. It’s a way for me to disconnect, whether it’s listening to it or playing the piano. I love to play the piano. So just spending meaningful moments with my close ones, and music—that’s how I’ll probably spend it.” Hyslop has a phrase for it—whiskies you only open for the people closest to you.

Leclerc’s ambition off-track, in his telling, is the same as on it. “On the track, obviously I’ve got my target, and this has always been very clear,” he says. “I want to become a Formula 1 World Champion. Off track, it’s a little more difficult to project myself, because as of now I don’t have much time to take on side quests. I have lots of ideas, but limited time to try and achieve those ideas in the best possible way,” he adds. “I’m super-excited to start this new adventure with Chivas Regal, with this new product that we announced today, and see how it’s going, and get the feedback. Then we’ll see where we can go after that.”