Final Four Casks Secured
If you know you can’t spend any more money this month then please stop reading now.
We’ve finally locked in the pricing on our final four casks from Scotland and they are STUPID cheap. You’ll all be wondering how we did this, but all I can tell you is that we managed to get some close friends to help with the importing. That way we got wholesale pricing, rather than distribution pricing. The results are below. Four different decades, four insane deals. All scheduled for late November/early December arrival.
2000 Bowmore 11 Year Old K&L Exclusive Sovereign Single Sherry Barrel Cask Strength Single Malt Whisky – PRE ARRIVAL $72.99 - This one took quite a while to secure, but we finally landed another slam-dunk cask: a sherry-aged barrel of delicious Bowmore single malt! I'll never forget looking at David OG's face as we sat in the tasting room of the Sovereign offices tasting this whisky - "Tennis ball can?" we both said, nosing the complex whirlwind of aromas emanating from the glass. Vanilla, rich raisined fruit, creamy sherry, and yes a bit of tennis ball can! The palate is where the Bowmore campfire smoke and peat moss creep in and lead one's mouth to a succulent, savory finish. However, the nose is the real jewel of this whisky and David OG sat for more than twenty minutes just smelling it and smiling. Who doesn’t love sherry-aged Islay whisky, especially when it’s from Bowmore?
1980 Caol Ila 30 Year Old K&L Exclusive Sovereign Single Barrel Cask Strength Single Malt Whisky – PRE-ARRIVAL $174.99 - If you can't believe your eyes at the price of this Caol Ila 30 year old single barrel, cask strength bottle, we can't blame you. Is it a close out? No. Is it just not good? Sorry, we don't buy bad whisky. How is it that K&L is able to get an entire barrel of elegant, smoky, mature Islay whisky and sell it for $175? We'll let you in on a secret - we worked very hard to get these casks imported directly and we've enlisted the help of a few friends to get these incredible prices. Do a Google search and you'll find that the official Caol Ila comes in at about $350 while other expressions bottom out at around $280. This new relationship we've started with Sovereign from our recent trip to Scotland is the beginning of something very big - top level whiskies, all at cask strength, all at wholesale prices for our retail customers!
1990 Girvan 21 Year Old K&L Exclusive Sovereign Single Barrel Cask Strength Grain Whisky – PRE-ARRIVAL $73.99 - The home of the old Ladyburn distillery, this is the perfect sister bottle to our "Rare Ayrshire" cask (which unfortunately is now sold out). Girvan once housed the now defunct Ladyburn, but was more known for its role in creating the Black Barrel brand available in Scandinavia and Latin America. This is another whopper of a whisky that is difficult to describe. Dry, herbal, grainy on the nose, but the palate is expressive and clean, finishing with apples and pears in a fruity flurry of flavor. So much fun, but more for the experienced drinker than the novice. We loved the complexity of this whisky, but were very afraid about consumer interest due to its esoteric character. When we learned that we could work with an importer of our choice, we were able to negotiate an amazing price making this deal a no-brainer. Other prices on Girvan of this age (if you can even find a bottle) fester around the $100+ range, making our cask the equivalent of a closeout bargain. David OG and I felt a duty to import this barrel for the super whisky geeks out there, those who are never satisfied with the limited selection of most stores -the uber-curious, adventurous whisky connoisseurs everywhere. Compass Box's John Glaser told us we were making him proud!
1965 Caledonian 45 Year Old K&L Exclusive Sovereign Single Barrel Cask Strength Grain Whisky $149.99 - Closed forever in 1988, Caledonian was a Lowland grain distillery that was once famed for having Europe's biggest patent still. The nose is salted caramel and sticky Sauternes with rich and enticing aromas of sweet goodness. The palate however is grain all the way - lean and herbal, odd and exciting, crazy cool and super fun - truly a difficult malt to truly explain. Knowing this was going to be for the true whisky nerds out there, we originally decided to pass on this cask even though we loved it. However, when the owners let us deal via our own importer, we were able to work out a ridiculous price for such an ancient collectable (the closest comparison we could find was a 45 year Caledonian selling in the UK for more than $200). Similar grains of this age have sold at K&L in the past for over $300. While this bottle isn't for everyone, it is meant for the curious collector looking to branch out and understand the various styles of Scotch. Grain whisky has always been an important element of blended whisky and continues to provide the backbone to legends like Johnnie Walker Blue and Chivas Regal. While it has recently fallen out of "style," there is a strong grain whisky revival festering once again and we're glad to be, as usual, at the forefront of all whisky movements.
-David Driscoll