.compass box - spice tree extravaganza

Another Spice Tree from Compass Box. Their first release caused a lot of noise in the industry and their first slap on the wrist by the SWA for not following traditional whisky methods, but using traditional wine maturing methods by adding charred wooden staves inside the maturing whisky casks. Their current signature release consists of a blend of malts matured in ex-Bourbon casks, finished in a "Hybrid Cask" with a combination of American oak casks and (different levels of) charred, European oak cask ends. They have now released an even more complex combination of casks, older whiskies, maturing for longer periods, and a significant amount of ex-Sherry matured whiskies to start with.

Wow, there is a mouthful already, and I haven't even started yet...

46% abv, €130
single malt, non-chill filtered, natural colour

Nose: sweet, liquorice, spicy, cinnamon, hints of cloves, allspice, star anise, fruit, mulberries, blackberries, cranberries, ripe warm cherries, cherry coke

Palate: thick, sweet, honey, honeycomb, fruit, ripe cherries, cranberries, spicy, black pepper, allspice, star anise, 

Finish: long, warm, sweet, honeycomb, warm cherry pie, spicy, cloves and a hint of cinnamon
Mark: ++++/+

Conclusion: Wonderful. This definitely tickles my senses on the right spots. I do not know exactly what it is that the whisky makers at Compass Box do, but it seems there aren't many whiskies that do not tickle my pleasant spots and make me smile. Those last sentences combined sounded worse than I meant to have it sound, but I'll leave it there for future ehrm... reference.

More info: "Only" 12.240 bottles have been released worldwide.

Glen Ord - unknown period in a first fill ex-Sherry Butt - 32.6%
Benrinnes - unknown period in a first fill ex-Sherry Butt - 17.2%
Allt-a-Bhainne - unknown period in a refill American Standard Barrel - 2.6%
Highland Blended Malt* - unknown period in a light / medium toast Hybrid Cask - 27.7%
Highland Blended Malt* - unknown period in a refill Hybrid Cask - 4.3%
Highland Blended Malt* - unknown period in a heavy toast Hybrid Cask - 15.6%

*composed of 60% aged Clynelish, 20% aged Dailuaine and 20% aged Teaninich, re-casked and matured for another four and a half years. With any luck, I might be able to update these last facts with ages any time soon.

.many thanks to Compass Box for sending us the sample to review

.compass box - three year old deluxe

My first love was a rabbit with an undisclosed name (my wife thinks it's her, so don't go telling her otherwise). My first whisky love was Ardbeg. Still nothing much to go on with this, except that when I first discovered the standard 14yo bottling of the Clynelish, I was sold. When I heard my favourite whisky blender known for using large amounts of Clynelish was about to release this puppy, my curiosity was triggered.

49.2% abv, €250
blended malt, non-chill filtered, natural colour

Nose: sweet, vanilla, liquorice, a hint of smoke, warm applesauce (applepie maybe?), spices, cinnamon, allspice, green tea, oolong tea, piccalilli (there is a first time for everything!)

Palate: spicy, jalapeño peppers, cinnamon, warm apple sauce, a touch of smoke, creamy, vanilla, sweet, honeysuckle, red berries, citrus, grapefruit

Finish: long, liquorice-root, more smoke, creamy, sweet, vanilla, hints of citrus peel, grapefruit
Mark: +++++ 

Conclusion: I might be biased, a fan of Clynelish and the people and products of Compass Box, but this is great. A little tongue numbing at first, but she doesn't take long to convert that into a creamy (waxy) mouth feel, with lots of vanillas and juicy, sweet red berries. Not much smoke, but just enough to give it that extra punch it may not even need.

The drop of three year old whisky, the kitsch label and frankly, the whole idea behind this release, is a big "fuck you" to the industry, the SWA and the UK and EU law and their battle for whisky transparency. They are stalling their fight for now, having found a loophole where we, the consumers, can contact Compass Box if we would like to have more information about the content of the bottle we just purchased.

More info: from the fact sheet: 

"Composed of less than 1% three year-old malt whisky produced near the village of Brora, 90% malt whisky of an unstated age from the same distillery and around 9% peaty malt whisky distilled on the Isle of Skye, regulations only permit us only to share details of the age of youngest component! No matter. For it is this three year-old that is most important to us. Aged from new-make spirit in our own first-fill American oak casks, it imparts a lively vivacity and represents a milestone in our development as whisky makers."


From that, combined with a little research and the use of the provided information online, we can build up the following:

Clynelish - 3 years in a first fill American Standard Barrel - 0.4%
Clynelish - rumoured - 24 years in a refill Hogshead - 90.3%
Talisker - rumoured -20 years in a first fill ex-Sherry Butt - 9.3%

We have contacted Compass Box for confirmation, and when this comes through, I will update the note and let you know.

Limited release of only 3,282 bottles worldwide.

.many thanks to Compass Box for sending us the sample

.compass box - the circus

Compass Box is well known for their bold statements, age statement (the lack thereof) and experimentation with casks, whisky types, out-of-the box maturation and blending, and... the list never stops. The Circus - their latest limited release, perfectly fits in many of these categories, "taking us outside of ourselves - like the best circuses do".

"If you're looking for rainbows, look up to the sky."

- Charlie Chaplin, The Circus, 1928

49% abv, €220
blend, non-chill filtered, natural colour

Nose: sweet, heavy sherried nose, dried fruits, raisins, dates, apricots - the works, gingerbread, exotic fruit, pineapples, mangos, spicy, black pepper, citrus, fermenting blood oranges, liquorice

Palate: sweet, gingerbread, spicy, black peppercorns - freshly ground, dried fruits, dates, apricots

Finish: warm, long, fruity, dried mangos, gingerbread, liquorice root
Mark: ++++/+

Conclusion: Damn, this is a fine dram indeed. Special. Overly Sherried, but not so at the same time, juggling nose and palate around the place. A blend like more should be, and like older blends most likely will have been. Full bodied, built on flavour, packed with character. I am sure I could get more notes, but I have decided to enjoy the other half of my half, rather than over-analysing it.

More info: a limited release of only 2490 bottles from March 2016. Composed from a complex and mysteriously matured stock, where most of the "extraordinarily long" maturation has taken place in the marrying casks, "contributing to the rich Sherry character". - quoting where necessary.

Blended Scotch 1 - long-term married in refill Sherry butt - 57.2%
Blended Grain - long-term married in refill Sherry butt - 26%
Benrinnes - matured in first fill Sherry butt - 15.4%
Blended Scotch 2 - long-term married in refill Sherry butt - 1.4%

Playing by the rules, no ages are given of any of the whiskies that are used...

.many thanks to Compass Box for sending us a sample of their latest release, making it - once more - very difficult to keep control of our whisky-budget... 

.compass box - enlightenment

"...Inspired by the writers, philosophers and scientists of the Age of Enlightenment it sets out to encourage the industry to consider the absurdity of a system that prevents producers from telling consumers exactly what has gone into the whiskies they are drinking..."

46% abv, €80
blended malt, non-chill filtered, natural colour

Nose: sweet, fruity, fermenting fruit, warm sweet soy sauce, apple sauce, citrus, blood oranges

Palate: sweet, creamy, fruity, warm apple sauce, citrus, warm fermenting sweet blood oranges, spicy, white pepper, cinnamon, apple pie, nuts, almonds

Finish: long, sweet, creamy, spicy, cinnamon
Mark: +++++ 

Conclusion: Damn... Another Compass Box to like. She carries quite a punch for a dram of 46%, which is something I appreciate very much.

More info: Limited Edition release of 5,922 bottles worldwide, bottled in April 2016.

The Genetic makeup of this whisky is as follows:

Clynelish - matured in first fill American standard barrel - 48.2%
Glentauchers - matured in first fill American standard barrel - 13.7%
Balblair - matured in first fill American standard barrel - 10.8%
Mortlach - matured in rejuvenated American standard barrel - 4.3%

Sadly, there is no linger information given about the ages of the whiskies, because: rules.

from the press:

Since launching the Compass Box Whisky Co., I have always been a firm believer in the spirit of enlightenment – that the more information we can share with our customers about the Scotch whisky we produce, the better. Alas, it transpires such beliefs fall foul of current EU and UK regulations, which prevent us from sharing information about the age of every component whisky used in the creation of our blends.

This whisky, Enlightenment, is our response to these regulations. Inspired by the writers, philosophers and scientists of the Age of Enlightenment it sets out to encourage the industry to consider the absurdity of a system that prevents producers from telling consumers exactly what has gone into the whiskies they are drinking. And of course the whisky itself is something rather special. A blend of fruity, fragrant Highland Single Malt Scotch Whiskies, it is bursting with aromas of fresh orchard fruit, flavours of vanilla, soft spice and pear and an alluring apple peel waxiness on the finish. An uplifting, enlightening whisky with which to ponder the world of Scotch not only as it is but also as it could be.

‘There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge.’

– Michel de Montaigne

.many thanks to Compass Box for sending us a sample

.compass box - this is not a luxury whisky

Inspired by René Magritte's 1929 painting "the Treachery of Images", depicting a pipe with the text "Ceci n'est pas une pipe." (This is Not a Pipe) written below, this beautiful whisky might not be marketed as a Luxury whisky, it most definitely has every aspect of one...

.compass box - flaming heart - 15th anniversary edition

"Every great achievement is the victory of a Flaming Heart."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The fifth release of this limited edition blended malt, honouring the 15th anniversary of the Compass Box.  

.compass box - hedonism - quindecimus

‘Everything in moderation, including moderation.’

– Oscar Wilde

Fifteen years after their first whisky release - the original Hedonism, Compass Box has reinvented and revamped that idea and went a little further, resulting in another limited bottling of their blended grain.

.compass box - peat monster cask strength

Big, smoky, peaty. Larger than life. A monster is what you expect. A monster is what you get.

.compass box - great king street - artist's blend

Day three of the Master of Malt - Drinks by the Dram 2015 whisky advent calendar. Time to dive back into a great blend, of the great blenders of Great Kings street; the great Compass Box...

.compass box - great king street - batch #00-v4 (orange)

The Great King Street - the Artist's blend from Compass Box is the company's standard, widely available blended whisky with good value for money. The company wanted to add a second blended whisky for the same money (which turned out to be the Glasgow blend). In the meantime they had "the audience choose" which they liked better from two choices; a blue labelled and an orange labelled version. Here is my result of the latter.

.compass box - the lost blend

“Yes, sir, the stuff was distilled elixir of battle, money and high life.”

- From The Lost Blend by O. Henry, 1907

.compass box - the glasgow blend

"In his 1930 book "Whisky", Aeneas MacDonald teaches us that Glaswegians historically preferred fuller bodied and more flavour-packed whiskies than people in other parts of the world. So what better name for a whisky such as this?"

.compass box - the general

Getting in contact with our favourite blending company, we cheekily asked if they had something left of their award winning blended whisky they dubbed the General. Only 1698 bottles had been filled in 2013.

.compass box - flaming heart - 4th edition

Every few years, Compass box are able to blend the perfect blended malt from a combination of appropriate aged whiskies, resulting in the Flaming Heart. A blended malt whisky, that keeps the character of the ingredient malts available for you to discover.

.compass box - orangerie - spirit

Not whisky, but "whisky infused with hand-zested peel of Navalino oranges and subtle accents of Indonesian cassia bark and Sri Lankan cloves". Curious as to what we might find inside the bottle (besides the three orange zests), we bought a (small, 35cl sized) bottle and popped the cork.
Expect to read a lot about oranges...

.compass box - delilah's

In homage to the 20th anniversary of Mike Miller's Chicago Punk Rock Whisky Bar Delilah's, in 2013 Compass Box released a new blended whisky, with a distillery recipe similar to the Asyla, but different in way of maturation, using a combination new American oak barrels and rejuvenated American oak hogsheads.

.compass box - eleuthera

Compass Box's first vatted malt, Eleuthera, was a combination of a 15yo malt from the village of Brora (Clynelish), matured in re-charred hogsheads, together with a 12yo malt from Islay's village of Port Askaig (Caol Ila). With the Clynelish no longer available in re-charred hogsheads, Compass Box decided to retire the recipe rather than re-vamp it with inferior cask types.

.compass box - the entertainer

Department store chain Selfridges wanted to produce their own whisky, and if Selfridges wants, Selfridges gets. What better choice for the actual creation of the whisky were the people at Compass Box, who invent and create small batch whiskies at a high level of craftsmanship, to produce the Entertainer?

.compass box - hedonism - 2007

The Hedonism from Compass Box is a blended grain whisky. Yes, you read that right, a blended grain. When the company started in 2000, the Hedonism was their first release. A bold move, since back then - even more then now, grain whiskies were neglected as being "proper" whiskies and were almost only used for sweet fillers in blends. Each year, Compass Box releases a new batch of this rare grain blend, all releases different from the previous ones and all with a very limited number of bottles per batch, where anything from eight to 17 casks are married together.

.compass box - asyla

A blended whisky, made with a 50% grain whisky from a distillery in Fife, where the one grain distillery is the Cameron Bridge distillery, so that's an easy guess. The other 50% come from the towns of Alness and Longmorn. My guess and research gets me to Teaninich from Alness, Linkwood and Glen Elgin from the Longmorn area. Lovely choices...