Welcome to Inbox, our weekly round up of whisky news and PR material that has found its way in to our WFE email. Inbox features items from around the world of whisky and is published by us each Friday. Here is this week’s whisky news…
The Glenlivet
The popular Speyside single malt brand of Glenlivet have revealed a special edition of their classic 12 years old bottling to celebrate the distillery’s bicentenary in 2024. The Glenlivet 12 years old 200th Anniversary Edition has been crafted by the distillery team and is 100% matured in first-fill American oak ex-bourbon casks.
The artwork came from a competition run by the brand, where emerging artists worldwide submitted their take on the distillery’s ethos of ‘forever moving forwards’. The winning design is by Studio Berdi in Colombia. According to the distillery, it ‘encapsulates Glenlivet’s journey from its inception by bold founder George Smith, to the whisky’s current status as a pioneering single malt, stepping into the next 200 years of innovation and excellence’.
The Glenlivet 12 years old 200th Anniversary Edition is bottled at 43% ABV and will be available in specialist retailers in selected markets worldwide. The exact number of bottles has not been revealed. A bottle will cost £52/ $US67.
Glenmorangie
The north Highland distillery of Glenmorangie have announced the fifth bottling in their Barrel Select Release series – the Glenmorangie 12 years old Calvados Cask Finish.
It represents the first time that the famous Scotch single malt brand has used ex-Calvados casks for maturation. The new whisky is the brainchild of Dr. Bill Lumsden, the Director of Whisky Creation at Glenmorangie.
The whisky has been initially matured in American white oak ex-bourbon casks for over a decade, before being transferred to ex-Calvados du Pays d’Auge casks sourced by Dr. Lumsden from Normandy, France. The Glenmorangie 12 years old Calvados Cask Finish is bottled at 46% ABV and is exclusive to the UK via the Glenmorangie website. A bottle will cost £75.
“Since Calvados casks have never been used before at Glenmorangie, I was intrigued to see how their elegant, orchard notes would complement our whisky’s award-winning style. This rare whisky takes all that is good about Glenmorangie to richly delicious new heights.”
Dr. Bill Lumsden.
Lochlea
The award-winning Lowland farm-to-bottle distillery of Lochlea has announced a special limited edition bottling for Burns Night to mark their fifth birthday. The whisky is a vatting of five casks, each showing a different side to the house spirit. Two of them included are from the very first distillation and cask filling in August 2018. It is the oldest whisky released by Lochlea to date and the first to carry an age statement.
The Lochlea 5 years old has been created by John Campbell, the Production Director at Lochlea, who personally selected the five casks. These consist of two ex-bourbon, two ex-Oloroso sherry and one ex-Pedro Ximenez sherry. The bottling is released for Burns Night as a hat tip to Robert Burns, who was a former owner of Lochlea Farm where the distillery is located.
The Lochlea 5 years old is bottled at 50% ABV and will be available from selected specialist whisky retailers in the UK. The exact number of bottles was not released. A bottle will cost £90.
“This is an incredibly special dram to mark our first special milestone birthday. We wanted to create a whisky that shows off the best of Lochlea spirit matured in different styles of casks over the last half a decade. We have carefully chosen these five casks and will not replicate this ever again.”
John Campbell | Direct of Distilling for Lochlea.
