English Whisky Company 12 Yr. Cadenhead Bottling Single Malt Scotch

This bottle comes from Campbletown’s own Cadenhead independent bottlers. It is a combination of casks they have acquired over the years, all ex-Bourbon with an age statement of 12 years. This is part of their collection series where they marry the barrels together and cut with Scottish water to 46% alcohol by volume. The nose shows a bit of spice, sweet mesquite peat, brown sugar, pipe tobacco, pepper, and a whif of smoky bacon. The palate has a terrific balance between sweet pipe smoke, brown sugar, fudge, cocoa, and green peppercorns. D&M Tasting Notes

The truth of the matter is that while the whole of the UK has a long and illustrious history with grain distillation, it had been over a century since whisky was legally produced in England proper. (1998 is when the Lea Valley stills fell silent.) Initially thinking that it would be quite nice to have a micro-distillery and a small set of stills he went about looking at the rules and regulations for such things. It turns out that very old rules and regulations forbade stills less than 1800 liters in England so the micro-distillery was out. Not overly deterred, James and his son Andrew Nelstrop decided if that was the minimum that is where they would size their stills. The funny thing about being the first to do something (in at least a while) is that with all possibilities they could conceivably make whisky in any number of ways (two, three, four times distilled in a pot, coffey, or column still.) Ironically enough after looking at all their options they settled on a very traditional setup of two times distillation in a copper pot still (same as is widely used in Scotland.) Michael Kennel, D&M