Review / A Fine Christmas Malt 2020 Edition

A Fine Christmas Malt is the annual festive limited edition bottling from leading specialist spirits retailer The Whisky Exchange. Each year the whisky goes in a different direction and the 2020 Edition is a blended malt that features single malts with a heavy influence of ex-sherry cask maturation. There are just 1,918 bottles and these are only available from The Whisky Exchange website or three stores in London. Bottles can also be engraved with a personal message. A Fine Christmas Malt 2020 Edition is released at 44.5% ABV and is both non chill-filtered and of natural colour. The price is £74.95 per bottle.

Inbox / The Week's Whisky News (December 18, 2020)

Welcome to Inbox, our weekly round up of whisky news and PR material that has found its way in to our WFE email. 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. 

 

This will be our last Inbox of 2020 before the festive break and what a strange/ difficult/ weird/ unpredictable/ unprecedented* year it has been (* delete as appropriate, haha). Inbox will return in the New Year. Anyway, here is the news from this week ...

Review / Dartmoor Whisky

The Dartmoor Distillery has released its second batch of single cask single malts. The three whiskies follow an earlier inaugural release in February from some of the very first casks filled and matured by the distillery, including Cask #1. In this second batch there are three single casks that have been selected - an ex-bourbon cask, an ex-red wine cask from Bordeaux and an ex-Oloroso sherry cask. Again, these are some of the first casks to be filled after production began in February 2017. All three are bottled at 46% ABV with the Ex-Bourbon and Ex-Bordeaux costing £59.50 each. The Ex-Oloroso costs £89.50. They are available from the distillery shop or via the Dartmoor Whisky website.

Allotment Drams / Scarabus 10 years old & Tamdhu 15 years old

We have two more episodes of our increasingly popular Allotment Dram series for you. The colder weather is calling for a more robust style of whisky so first Matt goes smoky with the brand new Scarabus 10 years old, an Islay single malt from the guys at Hunter Laing & Co. Then on his next visit he takes a look at a big and bold sherry cask classic - the Tamdhu 15 years old from Speyside. Watch to find out his thoughts and tasting notes on these two whiskies.

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Review / Tamdhu Batch Strength No.005

This whisky is the latest bottling in the annual Batch Strength series from the Speyside distillery of Tamdhu. The Tamdhu Batch Strength No.005 is a limited edition that has been created using different ages of whisky and only from ex-Oloroso sherry casks. These casks are both first-fill and re-fill, and of differing size - hogshead, puncheon and butt - with some made from American oak and others from European oak. There are just over 20,000 bottles available and these are released at a batch strength of 59.8% ABV. The whisky is non chill-filtered and of natural colour.

Inbox / The Week's Whisky News (December 11, 2020)

Welcome to Inbox, our weekly round up of whisky news and PR material that has found its way in to our WFE email. 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. Here is the news from this week ...

Review / Scarabus 10 years old

This whisky is a new addition Islay single malt brand of Scarabus, which is bottled by family-owned independent bottlers and distillers Hunter Laing & Co. It is one of two new additions that will sit permanently in its newly created core range. This Scarabus 10 years old, plus the Scarabus Batch Strength, will join the re-named Scarabus Specially Selected that was launched last year. Scarabus translates as 'rocky place' in Nordic and refers to the rugged location on the north eastern coast of Islay where Hunter Laing have built their Ardnahoe distillery. The Scarabus 10 years old has been matured for a minimum of a decade in re-fill ex-bourbon and virgin American oak casks.

Review / Glendronach Batch 18 Single Casks #2091 & #5897

These two whiskies form part of the latest batch of the highly anticipated annual single cask series from the Highland distillery of Glendronach. The Glendronach Batch 18 consists of 18 single casks, which span a range of ages and vintages, and each was hand-selected by Dr. Rachel Barrie - the Master Blender of Glendronach. The oldest was distilled and filled to cask in 1990, while the youngest is from 2009. 

All casks are either ex-Oloroso sherry, ex-Pedro Ximenez sherry or ex-Port in origin and are bottled at their natural cask strengths - these range between 48% and 61.9% ABV. All are also non chill-filtered and of natural colour. The price range is £97/ $129 US to £861/ $1,140 US. Each cask will only be available to purchase in an allocated region. The two reviewed here will only be for Europe and the UK. Full details of each cask are listed in our recent Inbox blog post here.

Inbox / The Week's Whisky News (December 4, 2020)

Welcome to Inbox, our weekly round up of whisky news and PR material that has found its way in to our WFE email. 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. Here is the news from this week ...

Review / Mackmyra Körsbärsrök

This whisky is the latest in the limited edition Moments range from the Swedish distillery of Mackmyra. The Mackmyra Körsbärsrök, which translates as 'cherry smoke' from Swedish, has been created by Angela D'Orazio - Master Blender at Mackmyra. She used a combination of smoked and classic unsmoked spirits that were distilled in 2010. The smoky spirit is only produced for about one month every year and the malt is smoked using Swedish peat and juniper twigs. The whiskies were matured at Bodås, Mackmyra's warehouse in an old iron ore mine, in two sizes of ex-bourbon cask (100 and 200 litres) and two sizes of ex-cherry wine casks from Germany (100 and 128 litres).

Review / Glen Moray Sauternes Cask Matured

This whisky is a new limited edition single malt from the Speyside distillery of Glen Moray. The Glen Moray Sauternes Cask Matured launches their new Warehouse 1 Collection, which will showcase some of the innovation going on in the distillery's most well-known warehouse. This single malt is constructed of just five casks that had previously held sweet Sauternes dessert wine, which were sourced from France, before being filled with Glen Moray new make spirit in August 2006.