All of the whiskies below will be available to purchase at Whisky Show 2024. Any stock remaining after the show will be available from The Whisky Exchange website and London shops.
The Whisky Show Bottlings
The first of our sets of whiskies for this year's show celebrates our staff, with three releases each paired up with three labels, each featuring a member of The Whisky Exchange team.
These folks have been telling people about the wonder of whisky for years, some out at the front and some quietly from behind the scenes. They've got a combined whisky experience of more than a century and, inspired by our #WeAreWhisky campaign, we wanted to get them not only out into the world, but also on some bottles of whisky.
Ben Nevis 2013 / 10 Year Old
Sherry Butt #1276
60.2% / 70cl
857 bottles
This first group of whiskies features buying director Dawn Davies MW, retail area manager Alex Huskinson and ambassador Billy Abbott. We're big fans of Ben Nevis at The Whisky Exchange, and this (we think) rather active refill-sherry butt has worked its magic upon the distillery's fruity spirit.
Tasting notes by Dawn Davies MW
On the nose, fudge and beurre noisette with caramelized orange and peach cobbler. The palate has caramel, cinnamon, cassia bark, leather and baked fruits.
Dailuaine 2011 / 12 Year Old
53.1% / 70cl
287 bottles
On the labels here we have store manager Polina Malinovskaja, brand director Liz Lock and senior buyer Ashish Basnet, and in the bottle: Dailuaine. This distillery's meaty spirit can stand up to a cask well, and this one has been matured in a 'new wood hogshead'. This is the way that distiller Diageo usual describes a rejuvenated cask: old wood (often wine casks) with the inside scraped down and recharred. The result is something punchier than an old cask but less intense than a new one – the perfect foil for Dailuaine.
Tasting notes by Dawn Davies MW
On the nose, pear and lemon bon bons with vanilla, and a hint of peach, marmalade and roasted macadamia. The palate has a round almost chewy character with notes of beeswax, white chocolate, pear tatin and a lick of nutmeg.
Caol Ila 2008 / 15 Year Old
53.2% / 70cl
291 Bottles
The labels in this final group feature own-label and brand product manager Chris Bolton, customer experience manager Corina Casu and old & rare head buyer Jason Vaswani. The whisky is from Caol Ila distillery, maybe our favourite Islay distillery. Big, rich and smoky with a maritime tang and a touch of citrus, it's a great example of spirit from Caol Ila and the perfect whisky to celebrate the team.
Tasting notes by Dawn Davies MW
On the nose, roasted chestnuts and frangipane tart with a hint of freshly lit bonfire and candied lemon peel. On the palate, dark smoky notes with sweet almond paste and a dusting of vanilla.
The Whisky Show Exclusives
This selection of whiskies has been chosen in collaboration with some of our friends in the industry – distillers and indie bottlers who we've known for years. These all celebrate the work we do together in getting great whisky out into the world, as well as giving us an excuse to do something a bit special.
Filey Bay 2018
IPA Cask #731
51.6% / 70cl
204 bottles
Spirit of Yorkshire is a distillery unlike any other in the UK. They make whisky like everyone else but they do it using barley from their own farm and brew at their own brewery: Wold Top. This not only means that they can trace every drop of whisky back to a field of barley, but they also have beer to play with and casks to age it in. This exclusive bottling is matured in a cask that used to hold Wold Top Scarborough Fair IPA, giving it a huge fruity character – a must-try from a cult distillery.
Sutherland 6 Year Old Blended Malt / Thompson Brothers
55.4% / 70cl
120 bottles
Dornoch's Thompson Brothers not only make whisky and bottle single cask bottlings of single malt whisky, but also create much-loved blends. Alongside their everyday drinkers SRV5 and TB/BSW sit a series of blended malts that celebrate the area where they are based: Sutherland. This whisky is made up of 80.1% Clynelish 2016 from a refill bourbon cask and 19.9% Dornoch 2017 matured first in a sherry butt before being moved into a Glen Moray refill bourbon barrel. It's a great whisky, with a label featuring The Whisky Exchange head buyer Dawn Davies's cats, Percy and Sajous.
Old Orkney 2003 / 20 Year Old / Decadent Drinks
55.8% / 70cl
145 bottles
While the team at Decadent Drinks are best know for the (now finished) Whisky Sponge series, they have much more up their sleeves. One of these projects is Old Orkney, reviving an old brand that disappeared in the first half of the 20th century. The whisky here is from one of Orkney's pair of surviving distilleries, one of which not operating in 2003...but we couldn't possibly tell you which one it is.
It's a classic of the distillery's style, although matured in an ex-bourbon cask, unlike almost all of its modern releases. This results in an austere and old-fashioned whisky, that fits in perfectly with the backward-looking nature of the brand, to a time when whisky was not quite the same as today. A fantastic dram.
Speyside (M) 2005 / 18 year Old / Signatory
61.2% / 70cl
First-fill Sherry Butt DRU17A106#39
643 Bottles
Another mystery distillery to close out our Whisky Show Exclusive bottlings, bottled by the legends at Signatory Vintage, owners of probably the best-stocked warehouses in Scotland. We can't say where this is from, but it's an 18-year-old whisky from a Speyside distillery beginning with M that famously uses sherry casks to create some of the world's most sought-after whisky.
Full maturation in a single first-fill sherry butt and bottling at full cask-strength of 61.2% gives this an intensity that you don't often find in this distillery's own bottlings. A must for fans of sherry bombs.