A new year has begun, and with it come new whiskies. This week brings news of an age-statement blended malt from Douglas Laing & Company, as well as the first two whiskeys in a new series from South Carolina’s Dark Corner Distillery.
Timorous Beastie 10 year old is a limited-edition blended malt with a similar flavor profile to Douglas Laing’s standard Timorous Beastie. The silvery-gray packaging is meant to mimic aluminum, the traditional gift for 10-year anniversaries.
Dark Corner’s Lewis Redmond series of whiskeys commemorate a notorious local moonshiner and outlaw from the 1800s. The first two whiskeys launched in November and December, and more will be coming. They are currently available only at the distillery in Greenville.
Finally, find information about Fifty Stone single malt whiskey from Maine Craft Distilling. A reader who had enjoyed our article about Westland Distillery’s use of American peat recently suggested that we check this whiskey out, because it’s also made with American peat. Fifty Stone is not a brand new release—it’s been around since 2015—but the distillery is expanding its availability this month.
Read on for full details.
Timorous Beastie 10 year old
Style: Blended malt
Origin: Scotland (Highlands)
Age: 10 year old
Proof: 46.8% ABV
Price: $50
Release: January 2018
Availability: Limited edition
Need to know:
Timorous Beastie gets a boost to a full 10-year age statement. This all-malt blend uses Highland single malts and is bottled with no coloring or chill filtration.
Whisky Advocate says:
Not the first age-statement Timorous Beastie—there has been a 40 year old and an 18 year old, which both scored very highly—but this is certainly the most affordable so far.
Lewis Redmond 1854 Edition Whiskey
Style: Whiskey distilled from wheat mash
Origin: South Carolina
Age: Not stated
Proof: 40% ABV
Price: $38 (375 ml.)
Release: November 2017
Availability: 628 bottles at the distillery only
Need to know:
Made by Dark Corner Distillery in Greenville, South Carolina, this whiskey is distilled from wheat mash and aged for two years and 320 days. Being aged in barrels that previously held the distillery’s bourbon, rather than new charred oak barrels, means that this is not a wheat whiskey.
Lewis Redmond 1876 Edition Straight Bourbon
Style: Straight bourbon
Origin: South Carolina
Age: 4 years old
Proof: 43% ABV
Price: $43 (375 ml.)
Release: December 2017
Availability: 775 bottles at the distillery only
Need to know:
This bourbon’s mashbill includes wheat, rather than rye, as the flavoring grain, along with corn and malted barley. It was aged for four years.
Whisky Advocate says:
Dark Corner Distillery has introduced a new series of whiskeys honoring Lewis Redmond, a 19th-century moonshiner and outlaw that the distillery describes as “an American Robin Hood.” Each whiskey is named after key years in Redmond’s life, starting with 1854, the year he was born, and 1876, the year that Redmond shot a revenue officer and became an outlaw. The next whiskey, 1881 Edition, will be a single malt, coming out in the summer.
Fifty Stone Single Malt
Style: Single malt
Origin: Maine
Age: Not stated
Proof: 45% ABV
Price: $45
Release: 2015
Availability: ME, MA, NH, RI, and soon NY
Need to know:
This is a “Scottish-style” single malt whiskey made with barley that is smoked over Maine peat, as well as seaweed from Casco Bay. The distillery has its own floor maltings and typically makes all its malt in-house.
Whisky Advocate says:
Along with Westland in Seattle, Maine Craft Distilling is one of the few American distilleries using locally sourced peat to make single malt whiskey. Peat is an abundant resource in many parts of the world, reflective of the local plant life and terroir. We look forward to more distilleries experimenting with local peat—the taste profiles should all be quite unique.
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