Raisin

Teeling Brabazon Series 2

Teeling Brabazon Series 2

While Teeling Distillery was founded in 2015, a quick look at their offerings will show releases carrying much older age statements. This is because when John Teeling sold the Cooley Distillery to  what is now Beam Suntory, one of the stipulations of the sale was the family taking 16,000 casks of whiskey with them. It is from these casks that many of their older bottlings are derived, whiskey essentially sourced from themselves. The Brabazon series from Teeling kicked off in 2017 and was named after William Brabazon, the 3rd Earl of Meath, who oversaw the development of the New Market area in Dublin that would eventually become the Liberties district where the current distillery resides. There have been four entries in this series as of this writing. The Brabazon 2 was bottled in September 2017 and matured in a various sizes of ex-port casks.

Laphroaig Cairdeas 2021 Pedro Ximénez

Laphroaig Cairdeas 2021 Pedro Ximénez

The Cairdeas line under Laphroaig was created to celebrate the Friends of Laphroaig, with the word being Gaelic for friendship. The Friends of Laphroaig is similar in some ways to other scotch loyalty clubs (e.g. the Ardbeg Committee) but is a little unique in that there are actually membership levels. Those levels are gained by inputting points gained by purchasing – what else? – bottles of Laphroaig and other distillery products. The three levels of membership are, perhaps unsurprisingly, Peat, Smoke and Oak. The Cairdeas 2021 is a cask strength scotch that began maturation in standard ex-bourbon barrels before being transferred to smaller quarter casks for more wood influence and then finished in ex-Pedro Ximénez sherry hogshead casks.

Taconic Dutchess Private Reserve Cognac Cask

Taconic Dutchess Private Reserve Cognac Cask

Taconic distillery was founded in 2013 by Paul Coughlin and Gerald Valenti as Millbrook Distillery until the change to the present name in 2015, located in the Hudson Valley of New York. A farm to bottle operation, the grains and water are all sourced locally and the distillery has a whiskey-central focus. They are also active in the American Distilling Institute, the American Craft Spirits Association and the New York Distillers Guild. The regular Dutchess Private Reserve is a straight bourbon named after the county in New York the distillery is located in and approximately four years old. This particular edition was aged in new oak barrels for 3.5 years before being finished in ex-cognac casks from Remy Martin for a further six months.