Toffee

Tomatin Cù Bòcan

Tomatin Cù Bòcan

Tomatin currently offers a portfolio largely comprised of age statement whiskies, some of them cask finishes. Cù Bòcan is the name of a legendary hellhound said to roam the area around the village of Tomatin and is also the distillery’s equivalent of their Skunk Works (or, closer to whisky than aircraft, Midleton’s Method and Madness micro distillery). It’s a place where Tomatin can experiment and try things outside their normal wheelhouse. The brand’s tagline is “Unlock the Unusual” and seeks to explore the smokier side of the Highland profile. The distillery distills lightly peated barley in small batches every winter, then matures them in a variety of wine casks before the blending process. The Cù Bòcan represents a long return of sorts for the distillery, as they were one of the first distilleries to move away from using peat to smoke their barley after WWII. 

Green Spot Chateau Montelena

Green Spot Chateau Montelena

The Spot series are a line of pot still Irish whiskies produced for Mitchell and Sons, wine merchants and whiskey bonders. Historically, barrels of whiskey were marked with a certain colored spot so they could be easily identified in the warehouses as being of a certain intended age. Being wine merchants, Mitchell and Sons had access to used wine casks and the Green Spot Chateau Montelena is a return to finishing form for the Spot line. The regular Green Spot, cornerstone of the line, was aged for between 7 and 10 years, with further finishing for a year in ex-Zinfandel casks from the famed Chateau Montelena winery in Napa Valley, California.

Westward American Single Malt

Westward American Single Malt

Westward was founded in 2004 by Christian Krogstad, the early days of American craft distilling. While inspired by elder whiskies such as scotch, Westward also is a proponent of exploration, where according to their website they “brew like a pale ale, distill like a single malt, and age like a bourbon.” Their whiskey is made using an American pale ale brew that is then distilled twice before being aged in charred new American oak barrels. The Westward American Single Malt is their flagship offering and the foundation for their other whiskies, which often have some kind of creative cask finishing.