Distillery Dive 16
Distillery Dive: #16 In 2019, SMWS spirit manager Euan Campbell identified two casks from Distillery #16 that had been aged in Port pipes for 18 years. He combined the casks and split contents into two sherry hogsheads – one ex-Oloroso and the other ex-Pedro Ximenez. As you’d imagine, they are both very intense and rich with lots of red fruits and subtle spices, and it’s fascinating to see how a split cask can head off in completely different directions due to different forms of additional maturation. Understanding the cask’s impact on a whisky is the primary focal points of our Distillery dive series. Each cask displays the decadence rendered from maturation in two different fortified wine casks. Cask No. 16.58 Hair-tingling revelation offers jammy fruits and marked nuttiness before leading us down the dark trail to candied cherries, game meats and savoury spices. Cask No. 16.59 Too good to be true shifts toward sticky sweet desserts and bitter herbs for an equally compelling taste experience! These whiskies are truly changing the game of cask maturation exploration, and for this, they bear beautiful “Game Changers” labels! These bottles will be released only as the Distillery Dive: #16 bundle to maximize Society members’ comparative experience of tasting these casks side by side.
ENTER THE LOTTERY! Only 78 bottles of each whisky have made their way to the US. Due to the expected high popularity of this bundle, it will not be available for ordering today. Instead, we invite interested members to enter the raffle below for a chance to order the Distillery Dive: #16 bundle. Entries must be completed by Tuesday January 25th at 2pm EST, when winning member names will be drawn. They will be contacted shortly thereafter and will have 24 hours to order their bundle (until Wednesday 1/26 at 2pm EST).
Title: Hair-tingling revelation Tasting Note: There's no going back now - but you'd never have had it any other way! The raw and hair-tingling revelation of heavily toasted nuts, jangling medicines and sticky dark fruit jams. Bitter citrus rinds, coal scuttles and the fiery kiss of properly spiced Bloody Marys. Water does little to cool this wildness, there's raisin liqueurs, angelica root, spiced mango chutney, wood embers and winter spices. A wild, wide-eyed hurtle towards unvarnished truth. Open wide... a hot kick of cherry kirsch, bubbling umami broths, whiplash salinity, red fruit teas, game meat gravy and paprika. Splash some water: fruit cordials, camphor, over-brewed herbal teas, dark ointments, wintergreen and aged plum wine. This whisky was matured for 18 years in a port pipe before being divided into two separate casks, this one being a first fill oloroso hogshead.
Age: 20 years Date distilled: April 2001 ABV: 53.7% Region: First-fill Oloroso hogshead
Barrel: First-fill Spanish oak Oloroso hogshead Outturn: 328 bottles US Allocation: 78 bottles Title: Too good to be true Tasting Note: Something was not real. Everything was too good to be true, too drenched in sugar coating and the syrupy, sticky sweetness of molten cola cubes, root beer and natural tar essences. Heady and alluring, set to reel you in with warm pine resins, fragrant cloves, strange herbal liqueurs and jazzy cocktail bitters. Reduction brought Jamaica ginger cake warmth - a soothing hug of roasted nuts, espresso Martini, intricate medicines and all manner of salted liquorice, birch beer and VORS sherry. In the mouth, the virtual and artificial perfections hold, lots of madeira cake, black forest gateau and gentle, sappy wood tones. Water cools everything down to a menthol simmer. Teas, earths, bitter herbs, medical traces and curious jams. Matured for 18 years in a single port pipe, this whisky was then divided into two separate casks, this one being a first fill PX sherry hogshead.
Age: 20 years Date distilled: April 2001 ABV: 53.7% Region: Highland Southern Barrel: First-fill Pedro Ximenez hogshead Outturn: 326 bottles US Allocation: 78 bottles
Cask No. 16.58
Cask No. 16.59