Mackmyra Motörhead
An age-old marketing trend has been the use of celebrities to promote brands and it has exploded in the whisky industry over the past couple of years. Before the surge, however, Swedish distillery Mackmyra partnered with English rock band Motörhead to help celebrate the group’s 40th anniversary in 2015. The band actively worked with the distillery to choose the barrels and blends, all aged at least five years. Drummer Mikkey Dee said “We think it’s great fun to launch a whisky in collaboration with a Swedish, world-famous distillery, Mackmyra. The whisky is incredibly good, with full character and fully flavoured with a superb bourbon touch” Motörhead’s front man Lemmy Kilminster was even more succinct: “Life is less painful with Motörhead Whisky. I may consider having a sip now and then.”
Caol Ila Distillers Edition
The Distillers Editions are a series of scotches from Diageo’s portfolio of distilleries, wherein each introductory whisky is further aged in another barrel for various times to impart finishing characteristics. We here at Scotchology have already reviewed the Oban, Lagavulin and Cragganmore variants. The Caol Ila Distillers Edition starts life as the 12 year offering, which we’ve already reviewed here, and further finished in ex-Moscatel sherry casks.
Balvenie 15 Year Single Barrel Sherry Cask
This Balvenie 15 year is aged entirely in an ex-Oloroso sherry butt. A butt is a type of cask standard for aging sherry, approximately 475-500 liters. Because of the larger size, there is less surface area per amount of liquid and thus the cask impact is lessened. This may be why this particular offering spends its entire life in the same sherry butt, as opposed to other releases where the sherry cask is used only at the end. Unlike other age statement single malts, which contain a variety of ages with only the youngest listed, this Balvenie is 15 years only, no younger or no older.