Batch 44 in our “Heresy” series sees the release of the Society’s first blended Scotch whisky. Julien Willems takes a look.
So which rules are we breaking this time? Here’s a hint: “If you’re going to create a Society Blended Scotch, you’d better big, or go home! It should be a high malt content blend with an old school character and pedigree.”
Those were the instructions from outgoing Whisky Director Kai Ivalo before his retirement. And here’s the result: the very first blended Scotch whisky the Society has ever put together.
Batch 44
BLENDER’S NOTEBOOK
Blended Scotch Whisky
It comes from a sherry butt filled with the blended base of a now long-gone blended Scotch whisky, still at batch strength, which had been coasting in that sherry butt for a couple of decades. We then came up with a blend recipe that incorporated that sherry butt with some 27-year-old grain whisky and more malts of around 18-years-old in bourbon, American oak PX and Spanish oak oloroso barrel and hogsheads. That gives us a total malt content of about 70 per cent and a 60/40 per cent split in favour of sherry wood. It’s also only diluted down to a punchy 50% abv, a rarity for a blended Scotch whisky.
This is a complex, classy, rich and unusual whisky. Go ahead and challenge your single cask, single malt preconceptions…