Welcome back 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. This is the first edition of 2025 as the whisky world awakes from its festive break. Here is this week’s whisky news …
Lochlea
The Lowland farm distillery of Lochlea has released their oldest single malt to date – the Lochlea 6 Years Old. The new whisky will be launched on Friday, January 24 ahead of Burns Night the following day. Famous poet Robert Burns used to live and work on Lochlea Farm from 1777 to 1784 and the whisky has been created by Jill Boyd, the Master Blender for Lochlea, and Darren McCormick, the Distillery Manager. They selected six casks (3x ex-bourbon and 3x ex-Oloroso sherry) for the release. All were distilled and filled in 2018.
The Lochlea 6 Years Old is released at 50% ABV and is both non-chill filtered and of natural colour. There are just 2,500 bottles that will distributed to Lochlea stockists worldwide. A bottle will cost £90.
Scotch Malt Whisky Society
The SMWS has released a special single cask bottling to celebrate Burns Night on January 25. The limited edition bottling – SMWS 88.31 Supper Sipper – is a 15 year old single cask single malt. The cask in question is a first-fill ex-Pedro Ximenez sherry hogshead from a Speyside distillery. This cask has yielded just 264 bottles at the natural cask strength of 56.1% ABV.
To celebrate Burns Night, the SMWS is hosting a series of exclusive tasting events across the UK – Aberdeen, Melrose and Inverness in Scotland and Manchester, Newcastle and Harrogate in England. These special tastings are open to both members and non-members and will offer a unique opportunity to sample six distinctive single cask whiskies alongside a traditional Burns Supper of haggis, neeps and tatties.
Sexton
The Irish whiskey brand of Sexton has announced a new release that will be exclusive to the global travel retail market. The Sexton 11 Years Old has been created by Alex Thomas, the Master Blender for the brand, and uses Irish triple-distilled single malt that has been fully matured in French oak ex-Oloroso sherry barrels sourced from the Antonio Paez Labato bodega in Jerez, Spain.
The new whiskey is created from 100% Irish malted barley and features some of the first spirit laid down by Thomas after she became Master Blender for Sexton. It is bottled at 43% ABV and will be available in airports globally from late-January. A bottle will cost €41/ £34.
