The Dalmore Releases ‘Cask Curation Sequence II: Port Version’ for $44,450

Within the fall of 2023, The Dalmore — a distillery located within the Highlands of Scotland, some 190 miles north of Edinburgh — launched the primary of its multi-year, four-volume Cask Curation line. The collection focuses on what the producer has change into finest recognized for: a cask-finishing program that makes a speciality of sherry and port, along with extra unconventional barrels represented by releases like The Dalmore King Alexander III, which used six finishes, incorporating Marsala, Madeira, and Cabernet Sauvignon barrels. 

Every Cask Curation set consists of three extra-aged whiskies aimed to have fun the accomplice winemakers The Dalmore works with. The primary set up featured three single-malts completed in sherry casks from González Byass, the biggest sherry producer on this planet and a long-time collaborator of The Dalmore.

In October, practically one yr after the gathering’s inaugural launch, the second version is lastly accessible. The Cask Curation Sequence II: Port Version acts as an homage to The Dalmore’s longtime partnership with Graham’s Port, whose port pipes are used solely for The Dalmore’s different port-finished expressions.

This yr’s highlight is on three port-finished single-malt whiskies: a 27-year-old, a 30-year-old, and a 43-year-old whisky completed in 1997, 1994, and 1952 single-harvest tawny port casks, respectively. Every expression affords its personal distinct character and taste profile rooted in every model’s historical past. 

“They’ve received completely different dynamics of ‘vintage’ flavors,” says Gregg Glass, grasp whisky maker and blender for The Dalmore. “What can we imply by vintage flavors? We speak about umami qualities. We discuss in regards to the stability of candy, dry, and of fruit and floral notes. What we discovered, notably with these vintages, was that there was an abundance of those vintage flavors that might lend effectively to that older inventory of Dalmore that we had. So usually, most of the older Dalmores that we’ve had had been put into daring sherry or port kinds, and that’s been nice. However with these ones, what you’re getting is the nuance, the subtlety, and the delicacy of age and ‘antiqueness.’” 

The youngest of the trio is a 27-year single malt that clocks in at 49.3% ABV and is completed for 2 years in Graham’s 1997 single-harvest tawny port casks, after spending 25 years in ex-bourbon barrels. The 30-year-old expression, which is a comparatively sedate 87.8 proof (43.9% ABV), rested for 28 years in ex-bourbon barrels adopted by two years in Graham’s 1994 single-harvest tawny port casks. The 43-year-old expression, at 41.8% ABV, sat in ex-bourbon barrels for 40 years, earlier than a three-year ending in Graham’s 1952 single-harvest tawny port — produced the identical yr Queen Elizabeth II ascended the throne of England.   

“The thought course of for the Cask Curation collection has not been purposeful. It’s been pure, is how I put it,” says Glass. “We weren’t saying, ‘We’re going to do that to do a three-bottle set.’ We’re doing this as a result of it’s the appropriate factor for the flavour pairing.” 

The only-harvest ports, referred to in Portugal as colheita, aren’t most customers’ stereotypical concept of port. Nothing just like the thick, grape juice-hued wines many affiliate with the fashion, they’re nearer to the colour of sunshine whisky — considerably golden amber, with a mildly syrupy viscosity. By regulation, colheitas are aged for at least seven years, however in follow, winemakers usually age them for for much longer,  typically holding onto casks for many years. 

“Single-harvest tawny ports are limited-release wines which have been chosen from excellent particular person years for long-term barrel growing older. They differ from aged Tawnies, that are a mix of wines from a number of completely different years,” says Charles Symington, head winemaker and grasp blender of privately owned Symington Household Estates. His group oversees a trio of esteemed port homes: Graham’s, Dow’s, and Warre’s. “We recurrently style wines and consider [port] as they mature,” says Symington. “Whereas most of those wines are blended in our aged tawny ports, there are a number of completely distinctive tawny ports from particular person years with extraordinary character that we really feel need to be bottled as single-harvest tawny ports.”

For Glass and The Dalmore grasp distiller Richard Patterson, deciding on the port casks — that are round 450–500 liters in capability — was an train in creativeness and creativity. 

“When you’re a chef, should you’re a whisky maker, should you’re a perfumer, and you already know that there’s one thing that, by itself, isn’t fairly proper or not the perfect, however in the appropriate atmosphere [when] partnering it with the right flavors and in a mixing method, can produce one thing lovely with plenty of depth and complexity,” says Glass. “These ones, we felt, embraced the home fashion and the character fantastically. They reached a pinnacle of the place they may very well be.”

The trio of whiskies, accessible solely as a set and priced at $44,450, are available a cylindrical inexperienced leather-based carrying case that’s been handcrafted in Florence. The Cask Curation collection is obtainable by means of choose retailers equivalent to London-based Whisky Trade and by way of consumerservice@thedalmore.com.