Product Description
For this latest Creators Collection, Fortified, we have turned to Australia, where casks once holding fortified Chardonnay, tawny and muscat bring new layers of flavour. Fortified: Adventures in Australian wine casks is a celebration of flavour exploration, taking whisky to new levels of complexity and brilliance – the ultimate flight in sweet wine casks from Down Under.
Read more about The Society's Creators Collection, Fortified here.
Tasting Notes
Cask No. 5.143: An outback dalliance
Sweet & Zesty | Lowland | 22 y/o | 52.7% ABV
This opened with a deep bowl of fruits on the nose, where orange embraced honeydew melon, apricot proclaimed its passion for cape gooseberry and mango muddled with pineapple. The palate, deeper still, majored on chocolate fondant with raspberries and cream, mango and lime coulis, and raisins bathing in melted butter with glacé cherries. Water gave both the nose and palate bass notes of coconut, sandalwood and plum, with top notes of juicy mango, orange wine and nectarine. After 19 years in an ex-bourbon barrel, we transferred this to an Australian fortified chardonnay cask for the remainder of its maturation.
Cask No. 9.310: Subcontinental flair
Dried Fruits & Spices | Speyside | 21 y/o | 54.9% ABV
We enjoyed freshly baked croissants with a drizzle of orange blossom honey before using a soft and fluffy peshwari naan to mop up the remaining traces of sweetness. To taste, we found peaches poached in red wine, prune and tokaji parfait, and toasted sweet-and-spicy rosemary walnuts. After reduction we moved into a sauna where the air was filled with the scent of sandalwood and Madagascan vanilla. On the palate we were back on the subcontinent with a traditional milk-rice pudding called kheer, also known as payasam, made with sugar, cardamom, jaggery, saffron, pistachios or almonds. Following 16 years in an ex-bourbon barrel, we transferred this whisky into a first fill Australian muscat barrique.
Cask No. 70.64: Top-notch tour
Dried Fruits & Spices | Highland | 17 y/o | 55.7% ABV
A potpourri of candied walnuts, dried figs, treacle toffees and lovage cordial arrived alongside some quintessentially summery gin-based fruit cup to greet the Panel. On the palate we went from Britain to the Caribbean for some Jamaican sorrel, a drink served traditionally at Christmas. The ingredients: dried sorrel, sugar, fresh ginger, allspice berries, whole cloves, star anise and orange peel. After reduction we had skipped to France to open a bottle of pineau des Charentes before eating butterscotch pancakes topped with a compote of berries and, going full circle, a British summer fruit pudding. Following 14 years in an ex-bourbon barrel, we transferred this whisky into a first fill 300-litre Australian tawny cask.
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