Butter

Longrow Red 15 Year Pinot Noir

Longrow Red 15 Year Pinot Noir

Springbank is one of the most storied distilleries in Scotland, a land rife with history and legends centered around whisky. The history of scotch in general has seen a number of boom and bust cycles and Springbank is one of the few survivors in Campbeltown of a particularly strong bust cycle of when there were upwards of 30 distilleries in this town of a few thousand on the eastern side of the Kintyre peninsula that faces the Isle of Arran and is only separated from Northern Ireland by a little over ten miles of open water. One of the three current major brands of Springbank is Longrow, named after another lost Campbeltown distillery, and is their peated single malt that is twice distilled. The Longrow Red series is a yearly release bottled at cask strength. No two years are the same, as a different type of red wine cask is used to mature the whisky, whether or not any kind of finish is used. This Longrow Red 15 Year was finished in fresh Pinot Noir casks from New Zealand for four years after 11 years in ex-bourbon barrels. 

Liberty Pole Pecan Pie

Liberty Pole Pecan Pie

It is normal for distilleries to have a core range that they produce in quantity and consistency. It sees their whiskies reach the widest audience and lets customers know what to expect each time they open the bottle. Occasionally they may release special offerings like a yearly or seasonal offerings. Mingo Creek Craft Distillers, more commonly known by their brand name Liberty Pole, takes the even rarer step (though they are certainly not the first or only) of releasing a single barrel. This is usually done by distillers when a single barrel has a unique quality all on its own that the distillers want to share with the world. Liberty Pole has released a number of single barrels over the years and this one is named Pecan Pie for the qualities reminiscent of grandma’s classic dessert. This barrel began as one of their standard ryes, (61% rye, 13% red winter wheat, 13% rye malt, and 13% six-row distillers malt) but was aged for a minimum of 36 months and is one of only 104 bottles. 

High Coast Sixty Three

High Coast Sixty Three

Sweden is a northern country and High Coast Distillery is on the outskirts there too, situated in Sörviken at 63ºN. That latitude served as the inspiration of the High Coast Sixty Three, where every element of the whisky and its making that could be rounded to that number was. It is peated single malt whisky peated to 63ppm, matured in 198 63 liter casks for 63 months (5+years), aged at 63 decimeters – roughly 20 feet – below ground. The first batch of this limited edition was bottled at 63ºF. Heck, the price of the grain in the Swedish currency was 6.3 krona per kilogram. The batch size was a 6300 liter wort and the average fermentation time was 63 hours. Even the cooper who made the barrels was born in 1963.