Welcome to Inbox, our weekly round-up of whisky news and PR material that has found its way into 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.
Kilchoman
The family-owned Islay distillery of Kilchoman has announced their latest small batch bottling – the Kilchoman Machir Bay Cask Strength 2025 Edition. This follows the inaugural release three years ago. It features heavily peated spirit and at the natural strength. Like the regular Machir Bay core range expression the whisky has been matured in ex-bourbon casks. This cask strength version is released at 58.1% ABV and is both non-chill filtered and of natural colour. A bottle will cost £65 and is available form the Kilchoman distillery shop, kilchomandistillery.com and selected world markets.
One of my favourite whiskies that we have released. It has everything that I love about Kilchoman’s spirit, but with a little extra punch. There will be a lot of happy Kilchoman fans out there seeing the Machir Bay Cask Strength back on shelves.
Anthony Wills | Founder of Kilchoman.
Spirit of Yorkshire
As the Spirit of Yorkshire approaches its tenth year of production, they have announced two permanent additions to their core range of Filey Bay single malts. These are the Filey Bay Moscatel Sherry Cask and Filey Bay STR Red Wine Cask, and will join the Flagship in the range. Both whiskies are single estate using 100% homegrown regeneratively farmed barley. They have both been created by Joe Clark, the Whisky Director for Spirit of Yorkshire.
The Moscatel Sherry Cask has been matured in ex-Moscatel wine hogsheads sourced from Spain. The STR Red Wine Cask features maturation in shaved, toasted and re-charred ex-red wine casks. Both take inspiration from former small batch releases by the distillery and are bottled at 47.3% ABV. They are also both non-chill filtered and of natural colour. They are available now from spiritofyorkshire.com and selected specialist whisky retailers in the UK. Other world markets will come on stream in time. Each will cost £65.
Two standout favourites from our previous batches have been whiskies finished in Moscatel and STR casks. So we decided to mark our first decade by committing more spirit to these cask types and making them a permanent part of our core range. We are also giving all three whiskies a stunning new look.
Joe Clark.
Timorous Beastie
The family-owned independent bottler of Douglas Laing & Co. have announced the latest limited edition bottling into its Remarkable Regional Malts range – the Timorous Beastie Phantom Smoke. Like all expressions of the Timorous Beastie, this new whisky features only Highland single malts. But this one has a twist with the first-ever introduction of peated Highland single malt to the blended malt. Some of the non-peated spirit has also been matured in heavily charred ‘crocodile char’ casks for added boldness.
The Timorous Beastie Phantom Smoke consists of just 3,000 bottles and is released at 54.2% ABV. It is both non-chill filtered and of natural colour. The whisky is presented in a wraparound label and bespoke carton that features embossing and silver foil detailing. It will be available from douglaslaing.com, and retailers in selected world markets and the UK. A bottle will cost £60/ €69.
