The Balvenie, the most handcrafted single malt Scotch whisky, is once again celebrating the unique nature of single cask whisky, and the mysterious interaction between oak and spirit, with the release of its 15 year old Single Barrel Sherry Cask.
The Balvenie’s 15 year old Single Barrel Sherry Cask has been matured exclusively in a single European oak sherry butt for at least 15 years. The 15-year maturation in a cask that has previously held Oloroso sherry creates a single malt characterized by dried fruit richness, nuttiness and spice. No more than 650 hand-numbered bottles are drawn from each sherry butt and each bottle carries the number of the cask in which it was matured.
Twenty years ago, The Balvenie released Single Barrel as a part of its range. That groundbreaking release in 1993 introduced single cask whisky – whisky bottled from an individual cask of a single distillation – to a wider audience of malt whisky drinkers and to date The Balvenie remains the only distillery that has an ongoing single cask release of a single age as a part of its range.
The 15 year old Single Barrel Sherry Cask is the second release in The Balvenie’s new Single Barrel range – following on from the 12 year old Single Barrel First Fill, which was released in early 2013. A third Single Barrel release, drawn from a refill American oak barrel and aged 25 years, will complete the range in the fall of 2014.
These three different cask types – first fill and refill American oak and European oak sherry – are the DNA of The Balvenie range, as they are the casks most widely used for maturation. However, only a select few of these casks are chosen by Malt Master David Stewart for bottling individually.
Commenting on the release of 15 year old Single Barrel Sherry Cask, David Stewart said: “It’s 20 years since we took the bold step to release Single Barrel as part of our range. Back then single cask whisky was pretty rare and largely reserved for the release of very old whiskies, but we opened it up to more whisky enthusiasts with the release of a single cask bottling that was much younger than usual.
“Two decades on, I’m very proud to be sharing our passion for the unique qualities of whisky drawn from a single cask of a single distillation. Due to the variances of a natural product such as wood, no two oak casks, even of the same type and filled with spirit from the same distillation, will produce an identical single malt. The fact that each cask is unique in this way and that the contents of each cask will taste different is a lesser-known facet of the whisky-making process but it’s a magical one.”
The Balvenie 15 year old Single Barrel Sherry Cask is a non-chill filtered release with an ABV of 47.8%. It has an RSP of $99.99 and will be available is select markets nationwide May 2014.
