Drinks Trade recently had the chance to preview Glen Moray’s latest Warehouse 1 collection whiskies with global brand ambassador Iain Allan. This is what he had to say about the release:
“Typically we’ll bring out about two or three different expressions in the year. This year we’ve got two.
“We’ve brought out a couple of Rioja casks, so Spanish red wine casks. One is using our non-peated spirit, one is using our peated spirit, so same cask type but very different spirit characters at the end of the maturation.
“This release for 2024 is the first time we’re taking it to a global market. These are bigger releases than we’ve done in the past and they will be available here in Australia but they will also be available in markets all over the world.”
2015 Rioja Cask Matured Single Malt (58.3% abv)
“The first one we have is the 2015 Rioja matured so this one is fully matured [in the Rioja casks], the spirit went into [barrel] on day one.
“Typically what we’ve done a lot with our experimental casks is ‘finishing,’ so that’s where we mature in one cask for a period of time and then transfer it into that experimental cask for a finishing period which is typically a shorter appointment in the maturation process.
“This one here is fully matured: it went in there in 2015 and has remained in there for eight years and that just brings a richness… When we give it a good length of time that’s when we can allow in the wine to really take hold allowing the cast to really have a kind of voice within the spirit really kind of expresses itself quite strongly; so here you get the lovely rich dark fruits and tobacco notes coming through from the Rioja cask.”
2012 Rioja Cask Finished Peated Single Malt – 57.7% ABV
“So within this one, I like to describe this as ‘we’ve taken one piece of the jigsaw puzzle away and replaced it with another.’
“This isn’t fully matured [in Rioja casks], so you’re not allowing the wine such a strong voice within the spirit so we take that away but what we replace it with is a peated spirit, so we smoke our malted barley with peat and that provides a whole new layer of flavour.
“What we’ve then gained is an extra flavour layer within the spirit, and then we’re allowing the Rioja cask [to contribute] a bit, and then we’re allowing the original cask which is bourbon to have a part to say. You’re getting these three distinct layers of flavour within this spirit.”
The 2015 Rioja Cask Matured and the 2012 Rioja Cask Finished are Glen Moray’s first ever Australian Warehouse 1 release, with distribution to be handled by The Whisky List.
