Strathearn – 2019 Single Cask #19-010 For Two Happy Owners (70cl, 59.3%)

Strathearn – 2019 Single Cask #19-010 For Two Happy Owners is a whisky from Strathearn (Highland). Bottled at 59.3% ABV, 70cl. The tiny Perthshire distillery of Strathearn could reasonably be described as a “craft” distillery. As well as producing rum and gin, their small Alambic stills are mostly used to produce whisky, which they do in small batches. Prioritising flavour over alcohol yield, Strathearn is one of if not the only Distillery to still use Maris Otter barley, which produces a deliciously creamy, malty new-make spirit. Every drop of Strathearn Single Malt Whisky is genuinely hand-crafted. The malted barley is carried by hand into the distillery and mixed with local Highland water in one of Scotland’s smallest mash tuns. After an unusually long fermentation of 144 hours, the liquid is distilled in a slow and deliberate way. The spirit cut points are determined by taste, not alcohol strength, before being hand-filled into specially selected casks and left to slumber until the spirit is matured to perfection. In addition to traditional Scotch whisky, they have also been known to experiment with alternate wood types for maturation, such as mulberry, cherry and chestnut. Those rascally renegades! That ought to ruffle a few feathers at the Scotch Whisky Association. First founded in 2013, the distillery is now in the hands of independent bottlers, Douglas Laing since 2019. Exclusively bottled for Two Happy Owners.