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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.

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. 

Green Spot Chateau Léoville Barton

Green Spot Chateau Léoville Barton

Wine Merchants and whiskey bonders Mitchell & Son have a long history in the spirits industry. Primarily known in the whiskey world for introducing the Spot line in 1920. Produced by Irish Distillers at Midleton Distillery, it is one of the few remaining single pot still bonded Irish whiskies. After most of the Spot line fell out of production for many years, the entire line has seen a reintroduction over the past decade. Included in this resurgence has seen finishes with specific wineries for multiple Spots, either for limited release or a broader market offering. The Green Spot Chateau Léoville Barton was aged for 5-7 years and then finished in ex-Burgundy barriques for approximately 18 months. The vineyards are located near Saint-Julien, on the left bank of Garonne estuary in southwestern France.