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Bunnahabhain Toiteach a Dhà

There is remote and then there is Bunnahabhain remote. Located on the island of Islay off the coast of Scotland, the distillery was only accessible by boat until the 1960s, when a single-track road was finally installed. The distillery is also known for having the tallest stills on Islay and producing one of the few non-peated whiskies there, a place renowned for its use of peated malts. However, distillers love experimentation and Bunnahabhain eventually tried using smoked barley with the debut of the Toiteach in 2008. The Toiteach a Dhà, Gaelic for “The Smokey Two”, is part of the distillery’s core range and serves as a sequel of sorts to the first. It is made up of around 75% ex-Oloroso sherry and 25% ex-bourbon casks, which is a higher proportion of sherry influence that found in other core offerings.

By Adam | October 25, 2024 | Islay | No Comments |

Cowboy Country Distilling was founded in 2015 and opened on Valentine’s Day 2018. Offering a wide variety of whiskies, vodkas, rums, liqueurs, and gins, drawn from the water, grains and weather of Wyoming by founder and master distiller Tim Trites. The Cowboy Country Maple Whiskey uses the same recipe as their Straight Whiskey, which is a twice-distilled bourbon with vanilla and baking spices added. This is then left to mature for a couple of years in oak barrels that once contained maple syrup. As might be expected, a visit to the distillery will also provide you with the opportunity to purchase maple syrup aged in oak barrels that once held Straight Whiskey. A virtuous circle if there ever was one.

By Adam | August 25, 2024 | Foreign | No Comments |

Puni Distillery was founded in 2010 in the Venosta Valley, the middle of the Italian Alps, by the Ebensperger family. Two years later, in 2012, it distilled its first whisky in two copper pot stills. That whisky had a mash bill made up of malted barley, malted rye and malted wheat. The Puni Alba was one of the first two whiskies made by the distillery, released in 2015 (the other being the Nova). Alba, of course, is one of the names Scotland was known by in the centuries leading up to England’s first major invasions (900-1286) by Edward I. It has since been adopted by English-speaking scholars to apply to a specific Scottish political period in the High Middle Ages. Alba is also the Italian word for dawn. Puni uses both of these references highlight both the dawning of a new era in Italian whisky and the fact that it was finished in casks previously containing scotch from Islay after maturing for a few years in ex-marsala casks from Sicily.

By Adam | August 5, 2024 | Foreign | No Comments |

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