Description
Shipping & Returns
Blair Athol 14 Year Old 2006 North Star Spirits Single Mezcal Cask Series 16 (2021) 70cl
1 of only 196 bottles produced from a Mezcal Hogshead in 2006.
Blair Athol was traditionally used in blends for a long time and now the single cask market is thriving with Blair Athol single casks bringing out its strong creamy character & taking it into Tequila and Sherry Casks.
North Star Spirits have a fantastic reputation for choosing great casks to bottle under Iain Croucher who headed up A.D.Ratray previously.
Blair Athol distillery is one of Scotland's oldest, dating back into the late 18th century. Its modern story begins when it was closed down by Peter Mackenzie in 1932, and was purchased by Arthur Bell & Sons the following year. Distilling recommenced in 1949, and with Blair Athol malt at its heart, Bell's became one of the world's best-selling whiskies. Despite its importance to the blend, Blair Athol was also bottled as a single malt under the Bell's banner in the 1970s and 1980s. New owners, Guinness, were less interested in this when they took over in 1985, but their subsequent iteration, United Distillers, brought a back distillery bottling with the Flora & Fauna release. Despite its popularity, Blair Athol has yet to be bottled under its own single malt brand. Other official bottlings from the Diageo era are very rare too, however the distillery has regularly provided casks to independent companies, many of whom have bottled some exceptional releases.
This whisky was distilled in September 2006 and aged for 14 years. It was finished in a ex-Mezcal cask.
North Star Spirits was founder in Glasgow in 2016 by Iain Croucher. They have since developed a strong reputation for bottling fantastic single cask and small batch whiskies, as well as the much-lauded Vega and Spica blends.
Tasting Notes
Nose Zesty lime, pressed sugarcane, tropical fruits, and cinnamon.
Palate Pineapple and fresh melon mingle with warming spice and prickles of pepper.
Finish Prunes, dates, and a gentle nuttiness, toasted oak, floral herbs, gentle spice, and plenty of citrus tang.
About Blair Athol...
A member of the ‘nutty-spicy’ camp which defined the old Bell’s distilleries, Blair Athol takes the first part of the descriptor to its boldest expression.
Cloudy worts and a short fermentation time give the nutty base, but it is distillation which adds real weight to the distillate. A controlled level of solids coming across in the wash still add a rich, deep, malt-loaf character to the new make. It is this character which allows it to show so well in ex-Sherry, although for blending purposes the majority of the make is destined for ex-Bourbon.
The central Perthshire town of Pitlochry sits on the banks of the River Tay and has had a distillery since 1798, making its plant one of the oldest legal whisky-making sites in Scotland. The original distillery was named Aldour after the burn which supplied it with process water, but changed its name to Blair Athol [after a village seven miles to the north] in 1825. This could conceivably have been to sweeten the Duke of Athol who owned the land
It became part of the Peter Mackenzie blending house in 1886, but like many distilleries suffered during the economic troubles of the 1930s and fell silent between 1932 and 1949. In the interim period however Mackenzie (and its estate, which also included Dufftown distillery) had been bought by Perth-based blender, Arthur Bell & Sons.
By the 1970s, Bell’s was being built into the UK’s top-selling blended Scotch and, as a result, Blair Athol was doubled in capacity. Guinness (which bought Bell’s in 1985, and after further mergers evolved into Diageo) opened a visitor’s centre in 1987.
In an attempt to tap into the then infant single malt market, Bell’s bottled it as an eight-year-old in the 1980s, but in the Diageo era it has only appeared as a member of the Flora & Fauna range (at 12 years of age), matured in first-fill ex-Sherry casks.
49% ABV
70cl
| Specification name | Specification Value |
|---|---|
| Country | Scotland |
| Region | Highlands |
| Whiskey style | Single malt |
| Whiskey variety | Scotch |
Blair Athol 14 Year Old 200...
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