Making the experience of super-luxury spirits crazily affordable and accessible!
Read more about the Spirits project.
- Suggested retail price: $295
- Thursday, September 29 (for as long as it lasts), we're pouring one ounce for $8.50
Grain whisky seems to be all the rage. While malted barley is at the base of most of the greatest scotch whisky in the world, in 'grain whisky' other grains are permitted. While most grain whisky is mixed with malted barley to make blended whisky. There are some plucky merchants pulling the best examples of this stuff and bottling it separately after long aging. The results are surprising and delicious.
Single-grain Scotch whisky is counter intuitively not from a single grain. Go figure. It is must be from a single distillery. But it's a combination of malted barley and other cereals, either malted or unmalted. Unlike Single-Malt Scotch Whisky, it may contain wheat, corn, rye and/or unmalted barley. Single-grain scotch whisky is always unpeated and lighter in style than the single-malts. This distinct style lets the oak speak a little more and provides an entirely different textural experience. Over the years the number of grain distillery have decreased and now there are only 8 left in Scotland.
North British Distillery was founded in 1885 by Andrew Usher, William Sanderson and John M. Crabbie and is now the only operating distillery left in Edinburgh. Although there have never been any official bottlings of North British, a number of independent releases, many of them well-aged, have showcased the virtues of this grain whisky. This single-cask single-grain Scotch whisky from the North British distillery is bottled by Duncan Taylor as part of their Rare Auld Grain range. It was distilled in September 1991 and matured in a Sherry cask for 23 years, until it was bottled in November 2014. Only 63 bottles of this whisky were produced.
Next Week in The Spirits Project
Laphroaig 16 yr (1997) Duncan Taylor Single Range