From the Cawdor Estate (as in, “Thane of Cawdor,” if you remember Shakespeare’s MacBeth), the Royal Brackla distillery’s fame as the “King’s own whiskey” (circa 1833) brings a new entry to the Scotchology crew: the Royal Brackla 16. Finished in first-fill ex-oloroso sherry casks and bottled at 40% abv (80 proof), this 16-yr old barley malt is one of Dewar’s (Bacardi) series of releases entitled “The Last Great Malts of Scotland.”
Many an American single malt (and those the world over) take a variety of cues from scotch. Wanderback is tapping into a different tradition, one found in both Ireland and in the Bourbon world here in the United States, somewhere between a distillery and an independent bottler. This is where a brand works with a distillery to create the whisky, which is then handed over to the brand for anything else like maturation and blending. This isn’t because the company wants to shortcut the normal process, moreso that they want to explore all the prospects American whiskies currently produce already offer and take them in new directions. The first four batches, The Evergreen Collection, were distilled just a few hours to their north at Westland Distillery. The Wanderback Batch 3 has been aged in high toast, low char new American oak and finished in French oak port casks.
Springbank distillery produces three single malt brands and of these, the Hazelburn is perhaps most unique in that it is one of the few whiskies produced in Scotland that are distilled three times (far more normal for their brethren whiskies across the water in Ireland). Distilling an extra time can remove more of what is often described as the “burn” provided by the alcohol in a scotch. Another unusual twist to this scotch is the maturation. While it is not uncommon to finish a whisky in another cask near the end of its aging for a few months or a year to give it additional character, this expression spent the entirety of its maturation in fresh ex-Oloroso casks.