Het Anker is a Belgian brewery with a long and proud history, beginning in the 15th Century. Gouden Carolus is maybe their most well known beer, though they also produce La Cambre, Maneblusser, and the Konishi sake line. In 2010, the owners decided to open a distillery and launch their first whisky in 2013. The Gouden Carolus Single Malt is that first release, and the distillery boasts a few more expressions along with a Belgian Cream in the style of an Irish Cream. This single malt is based on the Gouden Carolus Tripel beer. It is aged in ex-bourbon casks and then finished in Het Anker casks that have previously held some mixture of their beer. The bottle is a distinctive square shape and, while not seen in the images here, comes with a box that mirrors an image of the bottle on the entire length of one side.
Stranahan’s Sherry Cask
Stranahan’s Distillery was one of the first American single malts on the market in early 2000s, with their first bottle being released in 2006. One of the things American whiskies like bourbon were long not allowed to do because of regulation and tradition was something scotch had begun pioneering in the early 1980s, wood finishing. Not bound by the regulations of bourbons or ryes, American single malts like Stranahan’s are able to push the boundaries in creative ways their whiskey relatives were unable to for many years (though this has recently begun changing). The Stranahan’s Sherry Cask is a single malt aged for four years in virgin white American oak barrels and then finished in 500-liter ex-Oloroso sherry casks from the Andalusia region in Spain.
Knappogue Castle 12 Year Burgundy
What does a couple – one an architect – do when they find a run down castle in Ireland? Buy it and use it as the muse for a distillery. That’s at least what Mark Edwin Andrews, former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy, and his wife, Lavonne (the architect) did in 1966 to this neglected castle left too long untended in County Clare, Ireland. At Scotchology, we can appreciate fine architecture and fine whiskey, simultaneously when at all possible. This brand is known for producing exceptionally smooth, triple-distilled Irish whiskies. We have sampled some of their core expressions in the past and now we dive into a member of their Cask Finish Series, the Knappogue Castle 12 Year Burgundy. We have loved burgundy cask finishes in the past, so read on to see what we think of this one.