What’s in the Warehouse?

On a Wednesday afternoon at the distillery, you’ll find the Production team busy filling casks. We fill all our casks on-site, roughly 30 per week, which are then stored in our three warehouses. The majority of these are first-fill Bourbon barrels shipped directly from Loretto, Kentucky, and Oloroso sherry butts which arrive straight from Jerez, Spain. However, as we’re still a young distillery, we’re eager to experiment with different cask types to learn what works best with our spirit.

Over the past couple of years, our cask inventory has grown significantly. We now house approximately 6000 casks, with over 20 different cask types. No matter the cask, you can guarantee it has been purchased and delivered directly from source, as we want to maintain its freshness and integrity when we fill it.

In today’s blog post, we’ll be focusing on some of the experimental cask types that our Production Director John Campbell is most excited about.

Red Wine

Those of you who have been keeping up with our Single Cask releases won’t be surprised to hear that we’ve been experimenting with red wine casks. Our Royal Mile Whiskies Single Cask release was matured in an ex-Cabernet Sauvignon cask, whilst Aberdeen Whisky Shop opted for an ex-Shiraz. So far, we’ve found that red wine casks work extremely well with our spirit, promoting notes of juicy vine fruits. John explains that over the next few years he hopes to see more body developing in the spirit maturing in these casks, leading to deeper, fruitier flavours.

Peated Variations

We have a variety of peated cask experiments maturing in the warehouse – which comes as no surprise when our Production Director is from Islay! One experiment has involved maturing Lochlea spirit in a peated quarter cask before finishing it in a peated barrel for a double hit of smoke. John is keen to see whether this will be too much peat for our fruit and cereal-forward spirit, although “too much Islay is never enough” according to him! Another experiment involves Lochlea spirit matured in a peated quarter cask and finished in a sherry butt. The question here is: will the fruit dominate the smoke?

Amarone

A few weeks ago, a single Amarone cask was delivered to the distillery. This is new territory for John, who admits that he’s never used this type of cask before. It has yet to be filled, but upon nosing the empty cask, we were hit with a promising, vibrant, fruity aroma that has the potential to work well with our new make spirit.

Floor Malted

With our 2023 batch of Lochlea floor malted barley now distilled, we decided to put it into first-fill bourbon barrels to mature. But with so many experimental casks to choose from, why did we go for a cask type that we use so often? Well, exactly for that reason. We now have nearly a 5-year history of filling Lochlea spirit into first-fill Bourbon barrels, which allows us to compare our home-malted spirit alongside that which is malted at a dedicated facility. John explains that the oak from a first-fill Bourbon barrel is less dense, allowing us to understand the spirit development without being distracted by other, stronger flavours that a Port or STR cask may present.

What cask type would you choose to mature our spirit in? Get in touch and let us know via email: info@lochleadistillery.com