Glenmorangie 13 Year Cognac Finish
Glenmorangie was founded in 1843 and has gone through numerous permutations over time. Boasting the tallest stills in Scotland, they produce 6.5 million liters of single malt whisky a year fed from the nearby Tarlogie Springs. For the past few decades, Glenmorangie has also been one of the best selling single malts in Scotland itself and expanded into the luxury international market, driven by cask finishing started in the 1980s. This history of cask management is evident in the “Barrel Select Release” Series, where this Glenmorangie 13 Year Cognac Finish was released in 2021. A little different than many finishes that occur at the very end of maturation (hence the term “finishing”), the initial maturation in ex-bourbon casks lasted 8 years before being transferred to ex-Cognac casks that had been used already several times for the remaining years.
Puni Alba
Puni Distillery was founded in 2010 in the Venosta Valley, the middle of the Italian Alps, by the Ebensperger family. Two years later, in 2012, it distilled its first whisky in two copper pot stills. That whisky had a mash bill made up of malted barley, malted rye and malted wheat. The Puni Alba was one of the first two whiskies made by the distillery, released in 2015 (the other being the Nova). Alba, of course, is one of the names Scotland was known by in the centuries leading up to England’s first major invasions (900-1286) by Edward I. It has since been adopted by English-speaking scholars to apply to a specific Scottish political period in the High Middle Ages. Alba is also the Italian word for dawn. Puni uses both of these references highlight both the dawning of a new era in Italian whisky and the fact that it was finished in casks previously containing scotch from Islay after maturing for a few years in ex-marsala casks from Sicily.
Jersey Spirits Wildwoods Applewood Smoked
Jersey Spirits was founded in 2013 by John, Sue and Betty Granata and began production in 2015. A true family affair, John and Sue’s daughter Noël has grown up with the distillery and now serves as operations manager and lead distiller. The distillery is a grain-to-glass operation and is in now rush to grow just for growth’s sake. They are invested in their community, the tasting room serving as a frequent local gathering spot, and are not afraid to serve their spirits either on their own or mixed into a cocktail. For a micro-distillery, Jersey Spirits offers a wide offering of gins, vodkas, rums, moonshines and bourbons. The Wildwood series is named after a resort city in New Jersey and is the banner all their single malts appear under. The Wildwoods Applewood Smoked is made from barley sourced from Rabbit Hill Farms in South Jersey and then smoked over an applewood fire. Other single malts are the Cherrywood Smoked and Celtic Riviera.