Jan. 31: Drammers San Francisco...
Hello San Francisco Drammers!
You’re invited to join us for a special tasting on Friday, January 31st at 7pm with the US Sales Manager for Compass Box, Matt Hale. A big thank you to Ram and Tytus for organizing and hosting again (address: 133 Kearny st, 4th floor). Our friends at Compass Box are bringing a seriously hefty lineup:
Celestial — This was the final release in Compass Box's prestigious Extinct Blends Quartet series and very few stores have any of these left. This blend is driven by malt whiskies from the Ardbeg and Caol Ila distilleries, two parcels they previously brought together six years ago for the original No Name. 50% abv, $364.99 / bottle
Secrets of Smoke — This is the brand new limited edition release from Compass Box, which just came out a month ago. The goal with this release was to show off the perhaps underappreciated sweet side of peat. The makeup is 1/3 their Peat Monster blend aged in a 2nd fill Spanish red wine cask, 1/3 Caol Ila aged in a first-fill palo-cortado sherry butt, 22% Ardmore in a first-fill sherry hogshead, and the balance is made up of small parcels of Laphroaig, Bowmore and a blended malt. 9,792 bottles were released. $141.99 / bottle
Single Marrying Cask #65. Last year, as part of the larger shakeup of their lineup, Compass Box quietly shut down their single barrel program, which they called “single marrying casks” since they create a blend first and then rebarrel that blend to identify interesting variations from the single barrels. Here they took their somewhat peaty Glasgow Blend and finished it in an ex-Cameronbridge cask, which became a Drammers Club pick. Big Cocoa Puffs notes on this one. $54.99 / bottle.
All 4 Expressions in their NEW Core range: Last year Compass Box did a major shake up of their core range, deciding to discontinue two of the 5 expressions (The Spice Tree and Story of the Spaniard) and making a 3rd expression (Hedonism) a very limited once-a-year offering rather than the regularly-available core-range product it has long been. In place of that they added two new expressions this past September:
Nectarosity - This was just launched in September, featuring a blend of Linkwood, Clynelish, Cameronbridge, Girvan and a little bit of Balmenach. The result shows off rich, honeyed fruits. And it’s definitely worth nothing that they’re being aggressive about making this one affordable, weighing in at just $44.99 / bottle. 46% abv.
Crimson Casks - This new sherry-focused expression replaces the old sherry-focused expression that was Story of the Spaniard. According to a Whisky Advocate article at the time of the launch of Crimson Casks, the Compass Box team determined that “there was too much of an overlap between Spaniard and Spice Tree in terms of flavor and storytelling—as both were Highlands-dominant blended malts focused on wood. “It wasn't that they did anything wrong,” he said. “They just kind of played in each other’s territory a bit.” The solution was to combine elements of both into this new expression: Crimson Casks. 46% abv / $66.99 / bottle
Orchard House - This whisky was launched back in 2021, an early creation by James Saxon back when John Glaser was still running the company. As the name makes clear, this blend draws on whiskies from Clynelish and Linkwood finished in Palo Cortado sherry, aiming square at the bright/fresh apples and pears flavor space. 46% / $51.99 / bottle.
The Peat Monster - Even thought this is the only longstanding member of the core range to survive the shakeup, the reality is this famously peaty blended whisky has evolved over time. Today over 63% of the blend originates at Caol Ila in various cask types, plus another 35% from Laphroaig, leaving a mere 1% of malt whisky coming from off Islay. 46% abv / $69.99 / bottle.
That’s our lineup, we hope you can join us! We’ll order in light food (likely pizza, included) to try to make sure nobody is drinking on an empty stomach. And, as always, we strongly encourage everyone to arrange a ride home — remember we’ll be tasting through 9 expressions! Please let us know if you have any questions.
Cheers,
Charlie, Ram, Tytus and Drammers Club