Scotch Malt Whisky Society 35.263
$147.99
A DATE WITH A TART
This 12 year old Speysider is 58.8% and was matured in a 2nd fill ex-bourbon barrel.
Flavour profile: Sweet, fruity & mellow
Distilled on: 26 November 2007
Outturn: 207 bottles
Scotch Malt Whisky Society 122.31
$124.99
TARRY TARRY NIGHT
This 5 year old Highlander comes in at 62.1% after maturing in a 2nd fill ex-bourbon barrel.
Flavour profile: Peated.
Outturn: 235 bottles.
Panel's tasting note: "Raw, earthy peat smoke to begin. Then kippers! Followed by peppered game meats, salty bacon, smoky pub carpets, petrol, glacier mints and hot horseradish. Smoked salmon soaked in bitumen, roof sealant and hot tar buckets. Potent yet wonderfully mature for the age. Water brought us more mineral aspects and a bigger saline note. Fresh, sharp notes of lemon juice, sweet barley, cough medicines and potent English mustard.
The palate opened with a big, hearty sootiness, smoked earth, burlap, hot kiln air, more kippers, dense medical notes and wood ash. Some miso broth, iodine and natural tar as well. With reduction there came squid ink, dried herbal cough medicines, boot polish, camphor and the oily heft of a hot smoked salmon sandwich."
Scotch Malt Whisky Society 12.42
$136.99
GETTING FRUITY IN THE MALT BARN
This 10 year old Speysider was matured in a 1st fill ex-bourbon barrel and is 58.9%.
Flavour profile: Sweet, fruity & mellow.
Outturn: 221 bottles.
Panel's tasting note: "Rainwater dripped from the malt barn roof bringing a leafy freshness that mingled with nearby geraniums and green moss. Inside the barn we were getting fruity with blood oranges, nectarines and waxy apple skins. The sweet seduction of vanilla and milk chocolate introduced a palate that immediately proposed maple syrup, toffee and soft fudge. Then chopped almonds and hazelnuts frolicked with brioche bread among the toasty notes of sweet grains and malted barley.
A drizzle of water released apple crumble and cinnamon followed by coconut biscuits and lemon sweets. A lemon zing delivered citronella and grapefruit before vanilla sponge cake announced its arrival with glacé cherries and fine, oaky tannins."
Scotch Malt Whisky Society 44.129
$180.99
MUSCLE SPROUTS
This 15 year old Speysider was matured in a refill ex-bourbon barrel and is 55.6%.
Flavour profile: Spicy & dry.
Outturn: 206 bottles.
Panel's tasting note: "A muscular and typically forthright expression of this underrated Speysider. Sweet waxes, dried flowers, putty, lanolin, sunflower oil and gorse flowers were all initially noted. Additionally, there’s some salty young Fino sherry, flint smoke, damp shed earth and chamois leather. Water revealed pine cones, air freshener, potting sheds, chopped chives, freshly turned earth, soot and ham boiled in lactic stout beers. Sinewy and charismatic stuff!
The palate was immediately boisterous and lively with tea tree oil, vapour rubs, copper coins, vegetable bouillon stock, game meats, sheep wool and aged mead. Water tamed things a little, but it was still full of chamomile, vegetal notes, brown bread, autolytic yeasty notes, herbal and floral scented waxiness, barber grease, witch hazel and wine cellar must."
Scotch Malt Whisky Society 53.327
$164.99
KEEPING THE FIRE STOKED
This 10 year old from Islay comes in at 58.9% after maturing in a refill ex-bourbon hogshead.
Flavour profile: Peated.
Outturn: 275 bottles.
Panel's tasting note: "A variety of images came to mind nosing this sample neat. Smoked salted almonds, peat-smoked lobster tails and a steaming hot mug of Lapsang Souchong tea as well as the exhaust fumes of a tugboat. On the palate neat, a sweet peat smoke caramel explosion like taking the first sip of a mojito cocktail served with caramelized sugar-crusted key limes grilled over a screaming-hot peat fire.
Diluted, we were transported into a kiln where barley was being dried over a blasting fire just being stoked with peat slaps before we sat down to eat honey and nut cluster muesli."
Carn Mor Strictly Ltd Glenburgie 2013
$99.99
Scotch Malt Whisky Society 68.41
$137.99
HILL-WALKING HAPPINESS
This 11 year old from the Highlands was matured in a 1st fill hogshead and comes in at 54.8%.
Flavour profile: Spicy & sweet.
Outturn: 295 bottles.
Panel's tasting note: "A clean, fresh nose of cereal and wood (tea chests, polished wood, cardboard, straw, weaving looms and ‘my outdoor gear cupboard’) – then sugared almonds, donuts and chocolate raisins to balance. Our palates tingled with ginger snaps, cinnamon stick, leather and nutmeg – plus chocolate toffee éclairs, vanilla and cinnamon swirls.
Adding water, our noses found burlap, dried herbs, liquorice root, orange oil and putty, with ice-cream wafers and Tunnock’s Snowballs (chocolate and coconut-covered marshmallows). The palate now became sweeter – toffee, walnut whip, spun sugar and apple crumble topping; with wood spices, beeswax, white pepper and lemon cough drops to finish." GIVING SPIRIT BOTTLE - read more about this program here.
Tomatin 2006 KWM Cask 33283
$106.19
Our second KWM exclusive single cask of Tomatin was Distilled in 2006, and matured in a Recharred American Oak Hogshead cask (#33283) for 14 years before bottling at 57.1%. 297 total bottles.
Berry's Ronnie's Reserve 1992 The Quaich
$364.99
This 24 year old single cask (Refill Sherry Hogshead Cask #12040) of "Speyside Single Malt Whisky" has been bottled to mark the retirment of Ronnie Cox, Brands Heritage Director for Berry Bros. & Rudd. Ronnie was best known over the years as the face of the Glenrothes single malt brand, which was owned by Berry Bros. for 30 years from 1987-2017. We'll leave it to your imagination which distillery this mystery Speysider hails from... Exclusive to KWM in Canada, it is one of 7 casks bottled as part of "Ronnie's Reserve." Only 6 bottles. 53.3%
Ronnie Cox’s Tasting Note
Bouquet: Honeyed digestive biscuit, ripe yellow fruits, and honeydew melon.
Palate: Soft on entry the intensity of flavour meets the palate and then fills the mid-palate where shapes into distinguishable fruity and light woody and biscuit flavours.
Finish: Fulfilling and rewarding exuding exalted excellence. Dangerously more-ish.
More About Ronnie's Reserve - by Ronnie Cox
"When my father asked me what I wanted to do with my life I remember replying facetiously: to understand the mysteries of alcoholic drinks; the joys of travel and the delights of people. I count myself incredibly fortunate to look back on my career and see that I have discovered and enjoyed all three.
"I come from a whisky family of seven generations, on my mother’s side – the earliest two were distilling illicitly in Speyside, Scotland. Whisky, I think, must have been in my genes and it was to this industry that I gravitated following a year each in Germany and Spain, learning their languages and studying their wine. I never looked back.
"I have spent 40 years in the world of Scotch and always on the export side, promoting and eulogising its virtues. My travels have taken me to all continents, but I know Latin America, perhaps, the best. It’s a sad reflection to note that only after 20 years of monthly travel to that part of the world that the time implied in my Grandfather’s sage words, “South America is the land of the future”, was not as immediate as I had anticipated.
I know that I have had more than my fair share of ‘lives’. I have looked down the barrel of a loaded gun twice; been in the first plane to touch ground in Paraguay following a coup d’etat; witnessed the Congress building in Bogota being attacked by tanks; spent 48 hours without sleep with a group of contrabandistas; been robbed in a hotel room whilst asleep; negotiated whisky business with one country President and one Foreign Minister and been verbally threatened with my life several times.
"I have met thousands of interesting people including Russian and British foreign Ministers and I’ve even shot grouse in Scotland with Margaret Thatcher at my side. Being somewhat absent-minded on this lifelong journey my passport has “vanished” three times (I always carried two) along with one PC, about 150 pairs of red socks, 60 shirts and three suits not to mention ties. On the plus side I’ve eaten in over 4,000 different restaurants and enjoyed several thousand drams of the Scotland’s pride and joy.
"Now edging towards retirement after 30 years with Berry Bros. & Rudd and with a few years of country pastimes ahead of me, I am delighted to be asked to select seven casks of a distillery with which the company and I have been long associated. Not many people are lucky enough to witness history in the making but each of these casks tell a multitude of stories on the changes in Scotch production and maturation. These are all very special to me and I like to imagine that the older I get the more valuable these bottlings might become!"
- Ronnie Cox (Brand Heritage Director BBR