"We've got a set of casks called The Trilogy and they are with different finishes, they are using the Speyside Distillery distillate and then we are filling them into other different types of wood, sherry, port, and so on and they start their life obviously in bourbon and we've got three from the Speyside Distillery here and these are going to be pretty much what our whiskies are going to turn out like so we wanted to crack some bottles open and just have a chat about them to see what we thought they were like, so I'm here with Phil, Phil how about introducing yourself."
"Oh yes, so I'm Phil Huckle, I'm a fairly new employee in the Cask Trade growing empire, previously I've worked in the whisky world for 14 years for Pernod Ricard, working on distilleries like Glen Livet and Longmorn and Aberlour, is that enough or should I expand my life story."
"No, I think that's great, I'm going to want to say that when I first met Phil back in 2012, yeah he had a pretty big impact on my wallet, actually I bought 1973 Glen Livet because of this man, so yeah, he knows a little bit about whisky."
"So we're going to start off with this one which is called."
"We do have the new make spirit here Colin, you know something we sort of, should we start with that."
"Yeah, yep that's a great idea actually, let's start with that."
"We don't normally get hold of this, do we now so it's quite a uh."
"Okay, I also find it fascinating how that becomes this and why you can still taste that in that and vice versa how the whole process affects the whisky."
"Oh wow."
"Estery, fruity, fruity, esters are fruit flavours in spirit, it's quite elegant, actually it's not, for a high strength, it's 63 and a half, they feel that it's the ABV that the casks are filled at with this stuff but I don't get a huge amount of nose burn, it's quite an elegant spirit, it's not soft in any way, it's quite characterful still."
"Yeah there's quite a lot coming through on the nose there, isn't it."
"There is, a little bit of sort of typical apples I tend to get off new mix from Speyside, they are sort of orchardy, fruity sweet, confected fruit as well a little bit like uh love hearts."
"Yes that's what I was looking for."
"It's fantastic okay."
"This actually reminds me of actually, when you walk into a distilleries that nose is still there isn't it you know it's uh."
"It is."
"You've got that sort of um multi-grainy kind of nose still coming through as well but yeah definitely underpinned by all that fruit."
"Absolutely, yeah I love that sort of the whole new thing you get you can smell fermentation in it still."
"Yeah yeah."
"Which is lovely, great, okay so we started off with, uh, Trutina and that is aged in bourbon casks, in fact it's straight bourbon so this will give us an idea of what the first cask in our trilogy."
"And what, and what strength is this."
"Well, we don't know the strength of our casks exactly but this one is at 46, 46 so the cask strength ones will have a bit more punch."
"Lemon sherbet."
"Yes absolutely."
"Beautiful."
"Lemon sherbet, a bit of sponge cake."
"Yeah."
"And, uh, oh those firm bananas, do you remember as a kid."
"I'm thinking creme brulée now."
"Are you."
"You got me started on the cake series of things."
"That's fascinating, there's a lot in there actually considering this is not a particularly old whisky, um this is, this has got a lot in it."
"When did this distillery open?"
"They started in 1990 so uh it's a newish distillery, it's not one of the sort of the new batch that has been opening up over the last sort of five years or so, sure, but it is relative, relatively new although they started to build it I think in the, in the 80s, late 80s, it took a long time to build."
"I mean the reputation is certainly growing isn't it."
"Absolutely yeah they have big ties with Taiwan so most of the stock got all sent out to Taiwan, we never got to see it and it's only really in the last seven years."
"Ah, so they were selling it in the Taiwanese market then were they."
"Yep."
"There's a big big market there isn't it."
"You know, 80, I think 80% of their stock went to Taiwan."
"So I remember the first time I went there and they have sort of different, um, different sort of laws in restaurants and licensing and everything and you're allowed to bring your own bottle into a restaurant and they just charge you corkage on it and so my first time walking into, I just arrived, and going to a restaurant that night and it was quite, um, a spectacular sight to see on every single table there was a bottle of Scottish single malt whisky and everybody was just pouring their own, you know."
"That's fantastic, so yeah it's, uh, I wish we could do that in London. Oh it's spectacular isn't it for a relatively inexpensive whisky that is gorgeous, it's absolutely typical isn't it, what you would think of in terms of a lovely elegant fruity spirit paired with bourbon, first of all bourbon."
"I mean that age as well you know."
"Yeah, these are about five, six, yeah something like that maybe seven."
"I mean you can tell, I mean this whisky's on its way to greatness isn't it."
"Definitely, yeah i'm excited for the casks that we've got."
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