Tasting Notes
Like some steam-powered kitchen, puffs of funnel smoke swirled around grease-coated cogs and buckets of petrol marinade. We stoked the fire with more pencil boxes ready to cook the madeira chicken terrine and sticky toffee pudding. Beef cheeks bubbled in a sweet bramble and sherry jus as parsnips were prepared with a glaze of heather honey and shisha tobacco. Adding a drop of water combined orange muscat wine with peat oil to accompany smoked sausages and guinea fowl served with toasted acorns and wild mushrooms. Enticing aromas from spicy Swedish meatballs combined with oily glazed ham as a toot from the horn declared we were coming into port. After spending 25 years in an ex-bourbon hogshead this was transferred to a first fill Spanish oak Pedro Ximénez hogshead for the remainder of its maturation.
From the Spirits Team
Casks like this simply don’t come along very often and we’re delighted to be able to share it with our Society members. This one actually came from within the ranks of our own membership – someone who bought it from this Campbeltown distillery in the 1990s and who subsequently approached the Spirits Team to see if we might be interested. We certainly were! We took the distillate and after 25 years of maturation in an ex-bourbon hogshead, we transferred it to a top quality first fill Spanish oak hogshead that had previously held sweet, dark Pedro Ximénez sherry. It has a wonderful deep colour, and there’s a beautiful balance between the Spanish oak – which brings a bit of spice and tannin – and the sweet PX sherry. Combine these influences with the slightly smoky, oily distillate from our Oily & Coastal flavour profile, and you have something truly magnificent. Talk about sharing the love…that’s what the Society is all about.
About The Vaults Collection
The Vaults Collection is a selection of the finest and rarest single cask, single malt whisky, set aside from The Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s most remarkable stocks over the years. They have been released from the depths of our treasure trove of casks, after decades of slow maturation and careful nurturing. The Vaults Collection represents the whisky lover’s dream: A chance to journey back into whisky history, including the opportunity to experience styles or distilleries that no longer exist. The Collection takes its name from the Society’s historical home at The Vaults in Leith, Scotland’s oldest commercial building in continuous use whose connection with the drinks world dates back to the 12th century. Each bottle has a specially designed label and is offered in a beautiful wooden box.
Limited to 1 Bottle per Member