Coral Harker grew up in the circus. Not metaphorically, as some advertising executives might claim, but among the travelling productions of the Gandey family, where horses, aerialists and the occasional clown were everyday business. Her subsequent career in luxury branding might therefore seem an exercise in professional continuity, albeit with fewer trapezes and considerably more expensive bottles.
Her latest production, The Islay, is a whisky collection in three acts, conceived with Master of Malt and featuring an unlikely supporting cast: a former Ezra Pound scholar, several million years of geological upheaval and three distilleries whose identities the producers would rather not discuss.
