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…
Big Peat
The award-winning Islay blended malt of Big Peat has announced a special limited edition for this year’s Fèis Ìle festival. Big Peat The Thropaigeach Edition has seen the whisky finished in ex-rum casks that were hand-selected by the blending team at brand owner Douglas Laing & Co.
The bottle-only release, which is designed to reduce secondary packaging, features a bespoke design of Big Peat dressed as a pirate to portray the rum and tropical themes.
There will be various sampling events for the whisky during the forthcoming Islay Festival and more details can be found at www.douglaslaing.com. The Thropaigeach Edition has been released in limited quantities and at 48% ABV. It is both non-chill filtered and of natural colour, and will be available in selected markets including Asia, Europe and the UK. A bottle will cost £65/€75.
Tomatin
The Highland distillery of Tomatin have announced a new addition to their single malt core range – the Tomatin Sherry Cask 12 years old.
The new whisky has seen full maturation in ex-sherry casks sourced from Jerez in southern Spain and has been created by Scott Adamson, the Master Blender for Tomatin. It has been bottled at 40% ABV and will be available in selected markets globally. It is also the first bottling to feature a revamped packaging design. A bottle will cost £52.
Glen Moray
The Speyside distillery of Glen Moray have added two new limited edition expressions to their award-winning Warehouse 1 Collection. This series showcases some of the more unorthodox barrels that are maturing at Glen Moray.
The Glen Moray Peated Rioja Finish (pictured, above right) mixes the distillery’s rare smoky spirit with some of its earliest experiments with red wine casks. It is bottled at 11 years old and was distilled in 2012. The natural strength is 58.8% ABV.
It is joined by the Glen Moray Rioja Finish (pictured, above left) is eight years old and sees the classic Speyside spirit combined with red wine casks. It was distilled in 2015 and is bottled at the natural strength of 59.8% ABV. The casks for both releases were sourced from the famous Rioja wine region in northern Spain. Both whiskies will be available in selected world markets including France, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and USA. The prices and exact quantities were not revealed in the press release.
Lochlea
The Ayrshire field-to-cask farm distillery of Lochlea have announced the forthcoming release of the Lochlea Cask Strength Batch 2.
This second batch is both older and features different casks to the inaugural release from last year. The batch features a cask make up not seen before in previous releases from the distillery – ex-Pedro Ximenez sherry (60% of the marriage) and ex-Oloroso sherry (28%) butts, plus STR ez-wine barriques (12%).
The new whisky is bottled at 60% ABV and is both non-chill filtered and of natural colour. It will be available in selected specialist whisky retailers in the UK and other markets. Bottles will be available from early June and will cost £66.50 each.