We went voyaging 🌎
After a gap of a year or two, back by popular demand was our World Whisky offering ‘Going Global II’. We wanted to up the intrigue and exploration and managed to find new distilleries and countries to explore. Here was the lineup:
- Quercus Alba Single Malt Irish Whiskey (€79.00) 46% – Ireland 🇮🇪
- Copperworks, Release 046 American Single Malt Whiskey £68.95 50% – United States 🇺🇸
- Carpathian Greek & Cypriot Wine Collection Vradiano Single Cask #4159 Finish Romanian Single Malt Whisky (2023) £59 46% – Romania 🇷🇴
- Fib Whisky Mackmyra 8 Year Old Green Tea Cask £61.95 48.1% – Sweden 🇸🇪
- Fragrant Drops – Puni £85 52.8% – Italy 🇮🇹 *** Voted dram of the night 🥇*** – Long gone (only 88) bottles but we encourage you to check out the independent retailer we bought it from – Dunkeld Whisky Box
- Nantou 2015 SMWS “Come eat me with a spoon” 138.13 £94 57% – Taiwan 🇹🇼
- Indri Single Malt Cask Strength Dru £72.95 57.2% – India 🇮🇳
Grab your passport …
First up for our world voyage was the Quercus Alba (The American White Oak) from Irish 🇮🇪 craft distiller The Crolly Distillery. We love a distillery with an interesting backstory and founder Conor shared a tale for us to relay that started in a pub, took a boat to Islay and ended up with direct fire cognac stills in Donegal making craft whisky. This double-distilled single malt is about 5yrs old and is a very promising sign of what’s to come from this distillery. With fruit notes, everyone agreed this was very drinkable and at 79 euros (~£67), we all applauded a young’ish distillery making their whisky accessible. 👀 out for future releases!
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With Billy Abbott bringing The Whisky Exchange to our Summer Festival, we thought we’d see what’s hot on their shelves. Turns out they had just awarded ‘New Wave Whisky of the Year 2025’ to an American 🇺🇸 Single Malt, a category that has really grown over recent years. The Copper Works Distilling Co. RELEASE 046 SINGLE MALT WHISKEY is an intriguing dram that draws on the beer making experience of founders Jason Parker and Micah Nutt. The process involves a long fermentation with brewers yeast not distillers, fermentation for a week then cold crash plus two weeks cold fermentation, like making Beer without hops. “Beery Sherry” was one comment and we liked the dry but fizzy finish and this picked up quite a bit of ❤️ in ‘dram of the night’ scoring.
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For this tasting, we made it our mission to seek out some really interesting and unusual drams. During our foraging we came across Whisky Situation and were impressed by their range and ethos that whisky 🥃 is for drinking not hoarding – a view we heartily share. Founder Carlos was up for exhibiting at our Summer Festival but before then, we had the small matter of a Romanian 🇷🇴 whisky finished in Greek 🇬🇷 wine casks. For its Greek & Cypriot Wine Cask Collection, Carpathian finished this Romanian single malt in 200-litre American white oak barrels that had matured Kentucky bourbon for three years before being filled with the Greek wine Vradiano. A very interesting flavour, and many thought analogous to a fortified wine. Looking on the Carpathian website the series has other finishes including greek beer 🍺 so if you fancy a whisky adventure….
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Here at York Whisky Club, we ❤️ independent bottlers and so headed to TopWhiskies to see what eclectic wonders we could find.
A green tea 🍵 Mackmyra from Fife-based Fib Whisky?
That’ll do nicely!
Founded by the late-Aedan Burt and Iain Mundy, Fib Whisky is now run by Iain and his brother Andrew. With an ‘all hands on deck’ approach, Iain looks after production, the warehouse, and sales. Iain is also a qualified musician and freelances in a folk-pop duo, Braw, who released their debut album in 2021. Braw even penned an anthem about the amber nectar, Whisky in Hand, which featured in the Scottish charts. With a background in gin distillation and Scottish spirit experiences, Andrew’s passion is in tasting, crafting and blending spirits. He brings his knowledge to aid the cask selection and blending. Andrew also sings and plays in Braw, and has experience singing across Scotland.
Mackmyra’s ‘Grönt Te’ was made in collaboration with Japanese tea specialists Yuko Ono Sthlm. Grönt Te is a Swedish single malt which has been finished in casks that were freshly seasoned with a blend of Oloroso sherry and green tea leaves. Specifically, Mackmyra used Yame Sencha, Yame Gyokuro, Kaoribo Hojicha and Yame Matcha Shinobi teas.
The distillery release was 46.1% with no age statement whereas this indie release is 8yrs and bottled by Fib at 48.1%. We got the green tea as an after taste, with an almost umami experience.
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In our whisky tasting game, it pays to make friends with some of the great independent whisky shops in Scotland. When Fragrant Drops dangled a limited run Italian 🇮🇹 Puni distillery bottling on social media, we speed dialled 📞 Dunkeld Whisky Box to see if they were expecting some. They could get us a bottle and so it went in the cupboard for a few months awaiting the tasting. And everyone was glad we did – this bottling of pot still Italian whisky from Puni distillery in the South Tyrol, finished with Pedro Ximenez sherry octaves was 🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃🔥 and was voted Dram of The Night 🥇. We were delighted that our effort to get one of the 88 bottles came up smelling of fine PX. Fragrant Drops said it was a blend of 4, 5 and 6 year old distillate. While it’s from a single distillery, it uses a number of malted cereals rather than only malted barley. It is still single origin, still whisky, and still malt whisky, but technically not single malt whisky.
It was finished with a fresh PX octave.
Nose:
Satsumas, palmaviolets, nutmeg, cedar, sugary ladyfinger biscuits and Ovaltine.
Palate:
Toasty malt, walnuts, raisins, wood spice and honey.
Finish:
Orange zest, pepper, chocolate coffee beans and black treacle.
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Jim’s long-range stash took us to Taiwan next with The Scotch Malt Whisky Society release “Come eat me with a spoon” from the Nantou distillery. Situated in Nantou Hsien, Taiwan, Nantou Distillery was founded by the Taiwan Tobacco & Liquor Corporation, a Taiwan State-owned manufacturer of tobacco and alcohol, in 1978. However, it wasn’t until 2008 that it produced its first whisky. Before 2010, the mash, wort and wash were made in a nearby brewery which Nantou stopped using when it installed its own German mash tun and washbacks (with a 15,000 litres capacity) in the distillery. The fermentation run typically lasts around 60 to 72 hours, before the spirit is transferred into the appropriate pot stills. Nantou currently has four stills, manufactured by Forsyths of Rothes in Speyside, and was installed in the distillery with varying capacities. One is able to distill 7,000 litres, two are able to distill 5,000 litres each and the final still is able to distill 2,000 litres. The humid and hot climate of Taiwan means that the Angels‘ Share is about 5% per year.
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It can be a tough time for the last dram in a 7-dram tasting, especially in the palate-intriguing global romp of our World Whisky tasting. But, not for Indri. First tried at a whisky festival a few years ago, we knew that their cask strength Dru (57.2%) would have a great taste and the ability to finish off the tasting well. It was distilled and then matured in bourbon casks in the extreme temperatures of the northern plains of India 🇮🇳 which had a distinct effect on the maturation process. One of our favourites from that part of the world!
