Inbox - The Week's Whisky News (August 29, 2014)

Welcome to this week's Inbox.  For those that have recently discovered us, Inbox is our weekly round up of whisky news and PR material that has found its way in to our email inbox. It was created as we cannot write full articles or do justice to every piece received. It features items from around the world of whisky and is published by us each Friday.

Within Inbox we aim to write a few lines detailing each press release/piece of news/PR event that we have received and provide links, where possible, for you to find out further information.  It's been a bit of a quiet one this week, but here is the news that has caught our attention from this week ...

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Ardbeg - Supernova returns
The cult Islay distillery of Ardbeg have announced the third edition of the Supernova bottling, their peatiest ever single malt.  This version is bottled at the cask strength of 55% ABV and has again been made by Dr. Bill Lumsden, Ardbeg's Director of Distilling & Whisky Creation.  It will be available from September 12 onwards at any Ardbeg Embassy or via the Moet Hennessy Selection website.  The cost will be £125 per bottle.

The release coincides with the return to earth of a very special sample of Ardbeg.  A couple of years ago, we reported on a sample that was sent in to space.  This has been orbiting the earth on the International Space Station ever since and it will land back on earth in mid-September.  This will then be analysed against a sample from the same distillation that has been maturing in a warehouse at the Ardbeg distillery, to determine if weightlessness and zero gravity has any effect on the maturation process.

Balvenie - Tun up!
The family owned Speyside distillery of Balvenie has announced that it is to discontinue its cult small batch Tun 1401 series after nine bottlings.  However, this is to be replaced by the new Tun 1509.  This has been done to try and better cope with the ever increasing global demand for the Tun Series.  The new Tun 1509 marrying vessel is four times the size of the previous Tun 1401 and can hold over 40 casks of single malt.

The first batch of Tun 1509 contains 42 casks of various ages, which have all been hand selected to create a similar recipe to the Tun 1401 by Balvenie's Malt Master David Stewart.  These include 35 American oak and seven European oak casks.  It has been bottled at 47.1% ABV and also includes updated packaging.  The extra capacity will mean that the product can be rolled out globally during September.  No details of price have yet been released.

Sam Simmons, The Balvenie's Global Brand Ambassador, said: “People loved the Tun 1401 and it usually sold out quite quickly, which is part of the reason why we are changing to a bigger tun. The demand is high and instead of having to do different packages four times a year and for different markets, we can now just do one for the world.” 

Kilchoman - Next Port of call
The small independently owned distillery of Kilchoman, located on the famous whisky island of Islay, have announced their latest limited edition release.  The Port Cask Matured is the first ever release from the distillery to be fully matured in ex-Port casks.  It has been bottled at the cask strength of 55% ABV, and is non chill-filtered and of natural colour.  There are just 6,000 bottles and they will be available from specialist retailers from September 5.  The price will be £65 a bottle.

Anthony Wills, the Managing Director of Kilchoman, said: “We experimented with a number of different cask types to see which ones worked for a full maturation term and the ruby Port casks are exceptional at just 3 years old. The palate has a wonderful balance of Port influence but maintains much of Kilchoman’s signature characteristics”