Jura Perspective No.1 16 Year
$129.99
This 16 year old release from the Isle of Jura Distillery was matured in ex-Bourbon casks, and partially finished in Oloroso Sherry before bottling at 46.5%. Only 120 bottles!
Producer Description
"Perspective No. 01 is a snapshot of Jura’s island spirit. Brought together through a combination of ex-Bourbon barrels and sherry casks, it highlights core elements of the distillery character, featuring notes of stone fruit, assorted dried citrus, wildflower honey and toasted walnut."
North Star Campbeltown Connection 10Year
$121.99
Evan deserves the credit for sleuthing out this new KWM exclusive Campbeltown Blended Malt. We tried a sample early in the fall, and were suitably impressed by it for the price. 10 years of age and 50.7%.
If the rumours can be believed, the whisky is a marriage of Springbank from 1994 and 2015, with Glen Scotia from 1992. But true to form the chap at North Star Spirits has little to say about it on the record, the official product description "Our own mix of Springbank, Glen Scotia, and other Campbeltown Malts" seemingly raises more questions than it answers.
But perhaps this is a time to not look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth. We have here a 10 year old Campbeltown Blended Malt at just over 50%, with a beautiful label, and the price is very reasonable!
Thompson Bros. Glen Garioch 27 Year
$319.99
We are on always on the hunt for value, and a 27 year old Glen Garioch at 49.3% for just a tad over $300 fits the bill! This 1998 vintage Glen Garioch was supposedly matured in an oloroso sherry cask, but when the chaps at Thompson Bros. nosed it, they were pretty confident it was actually a Fino Sherry cask. Based on references in the tasting note, they might be right. Exclusive to KWM in Canada!
Producer Description
"We recently received a butt of Glen Garioch 1998, purchased blind based on the outstanding quality of previous casks from this vintage and with confidence, as the purchase order specified a 1st fill sherry butt. However, upon arrival and during our routine sensory analysis (someone's gotta do it), it became immediately apparent from visual assessment that this was not typical of 1st fill oloroso or px sherry, as we had initially expected. Instead, the spirit presented pronounced saline notes, followed by chamomile and fresh bread dough - characteristics that strongly suggest this cask is, in fact, a 1st fill fino sherry butt. We are now highly confident in that conclusion. the combination of distillate, time and oak interplay beautifully here. The nature of buying blind can be a bit risky, but very often those risks pay off in very interesting ways."
GlenAllachie 2014 KWM Puncheon #1769
$169.99
Our 2nd KWM exclusive single cask from GlenAllachie is a 2014 vintage Oloroso Sherry Puncheon, bottled after 11 years at 62%. This is a sherry bomb, with finesse, that will delight Billy Walker fans, and anyone who likes a proper sherried dram. Despite the punchy ABV it is very drinkable at natural strength.
We can probably assume this whisky was re-racked by Billy and his team at some point after they acquired the distillery from Pernod Ricard. First, the ABV, is a clue that this was put into its original cask at still strength, rather than the industry standard 63.5%, presumably to save on casks. Pernod almost certainly wasn't putting GlenAllachie into top of the line sherry cask in the mid-2010s when demand and pricing for sherry casks was high.
The Billy Walker secret sauce, typified by his time running GlenDronach, is to re rack maturing stocks into more active casks. The Outturn, 700 bottles, which is a lot from a single cask, even a puncheon which can range from 500-700 litres in size, is another clue that this was likely a finishing cask? Probably, but even if true, the reality is the whisky very likely spent more time in the Puncheon, than it would have in the casks it started out in.
Regardless, the result is an excellent GlenAllachie sherry cask, and a bottling we are thrilled to have our name on!
Amrut 2013 9 Year KWM Port Pipe 4660
$214.99
Our 3rd KWM exclusive cask of Amrut was selected last fall when our friend Ashok paid us a visit to the store. Distilled in August of 2013, the whisky matured 9 years in an ex-Port Pipe No. 4660, before bottling in December of 2022, after 9 years at 60%.
When Ashok was going through the samples with us, he was astounded to learn that his Amrut would be our 145th KWM exclusive cask bottling... so he put that little tidbit on the label. Shipments from India don't happen overnight however, and in the 10 months since the cask was bottled, we've launched more than 10 other exclusive bottlings... But 10 months is an improvement, the last cask took nearly a year and a half to reach us.
It is worth noting, that at 9 years of age, this is a very mature bottling of Amrut. It is also almost certainly the first KWM-exclusive cask bottling from an ex-Port cask.
One final curiosity is the bottling strength of 60%. This is not cask strength, Amrut waters its bottlings down to 60%, if they are above, to save an enormous amount of Indian excise taxes...
Berry's Blair Athol 2009 KWM Cask
$141.99
Our first KWM exclusive single cask of Blair Athol is a 14 year old bottled for us by our friends at Berry Bros. & Rudd. The spirit was filled into a hogshead cask, #8939, in 2009, and has been bottled after 14 years at 59.1%. Only 156 total bottles!
Boutique-y Strathmill B10 14 Year
$109.99
This whisky was featured on Day 13 of our 2023 KWM Whisky Calendar. You can check out Evan's blog post on the whisky here.
This is the 10th Batch of Strathmill to be bottled by That Boutique-y Whisky Company. 417 bottles were filled at a strength of 55.5% of this 14 Year Old.
Tormore Legacy 2012 12 Year Cask 800313
$129.99
This 12 year old Tormore is one of the first-ever official single cask bottlings. Distilled in 2012, the whisky matured in a Refill ex-Bourbon Barrel (cak 800313) before bottling at 52.3%.
Producer Description
‘Legacy’ single cask series is a celebration of Tormore’s past and the people that have made it. Polly Logan, Tormore Distillery manager, has hand-picked a selection of the distillery’s vintage casks, all matured in ex-bourbon barrels where the wood profile perfectly complements Tormore’s intrinsic, fruity and elegant character. Single casks have been previously available in rare, small batches from independent bottlers -but ‘Legacy’ is the first official distillery single cask release under the Elixir Distillers stewardship."
Berry's Glenlossie 2013
$91.99
This small batch bottling of Glenlossie from Berry Bros. & Rudd was matured 10 years in Hogsheads before bottling at 46%. Exclusive to KWM, Glenlossie is a distillery that we sadly just don't see enough of!