This is just Beam straight rye (likely at 4 years and a day old) at 45% ABV. Maybe – MAYBE – if they had anything whatsoever to say about what their “oldest recipe” entails, or why it has anything to do with pre-Prohibition distillation, or really any information at all about why this is different from the 40% ABV version that this is replacing, I MIGHT have been a little less cynical…
In the UK and other markets this NAS Tomatin expression is sold as “Tomatin Legacy” while in the US it’s sold as “Tomatin Dualchas”, which is the Scots Gaelic word for ‘heritage’ or ‘legacy’. This bottling, whatever its name, is the NAS (no-age-statement) entry-level bottling from the Tomatin distillery in the village of Tomatin in the Scottish Highlands … is vatted from Tomatin single malt aged in a combination of ex-bourbon and virgin (new) American oak casks. The virgin oak is intended to give the under-matured malt component an extra dose of …
Westland’s meticulously-sourced sherry casks are shipped whole (rather than broken down into staves and re-coopered, which is how most whisky producers handle them) to the States and then filled with the same five-malt blend as the American Oak release. The distillery uses both ex-Oloroso and ex-PX sherry casks, and blends the resulting full-term sherry-matured malt whiskey with…
This Aberlour is aged in two separate cask types: “Traditional Oak” which is a funny way of saying ex-bourbon American Oak casks, and ex-Sherry casks. These are aged for 12 years and then married together in undisclosed proportions before bottling at the legal minimum 40% ABV. Interestingly, all of Aberlour’s official lineup is now labelled as a “Double Cask” whisky with the exception of a’bunadh. This may be their way of dealing with the expanding crisis of…