Raisin

GlenAllachie 12 Year

Located in the heart of Speyside, a few thousand feet from the River Spey at the foot of Ben Rinnes, GlenAllachie was founded in 1967 by Mackinlay McPherson. It has changed ownership several times but is now independently owned and managed, one of the last remaining distilleries in Scotland to be so. While having much greater capacity, the current output of the distillery is around 500,000 liters of alcohol per year. They have 16 warehouses on site holding some 50,000 barrels. Despite this history, they have rebranded and are only relatively new on American shelves. Unlike many distilleries today, their line is dominated by a great number of age statement offerings across a few named ranges. The GlenAllachie 12 Year is the keystone of their core range and is a pure introduction, offering no cask finishes or proof hikes.

By Adam | December 10, 2021 | Speyside | No Comments |

Cedar Ridge Winery and Distilltery was founded in 2005 by Jeff Quint and family. They released their first bourbon in 2010 and have gradually expanded to include rum, gin and fruit brandy. Yet their main focus remains whiskey, as is evidenced from their almost dozen different offerings. The distillery’s first American single malt was released in 2020, the QuintEssential. Besides being a smart play on the family name, this single malt makes use of the other aspects of the business and involves a complex aging and finishing process involving 20 different types of casks, a solera system, and a mixture of peated and unpeated malt from Canada. While looking to Scotland for inspiration, Cedar Ridge also embraces the exploratory nature of craft distilling in America and future releases of the QuintEssential promise to continue pushing boundaries.

By Adam | November 30, 2021 | Foreign | No Comments |

Many an American single malt (and those the world over) take a variety of cues from scotch. Wanderback is tapping into a different tradition, one found in both Ireland and in the Bourbon world here in the United States, somewhere between a distillery and an independent bottler. This is where a brand works with a distillery to create the whisky, which is then handed over to the brand for anything else like maturation and blending. This isn’t because the company wants to shortcut the normal process, moreso that they want to explore all the prospects American whiskies currently produce already offer and take them in new directions. The first four batches, The Evergreen Collection, were distilled just a few hours to their north at Westland Distillery. The Wanderback Batch 3 has been aged in high toast, low char new American oak and finished in French oak port casks.

By Adam | October 30, 2021 | Foreign | No Comments |