Oak Cross Whisky

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Nov 1st 2006 at 12:02PM

The latest whisky from Compass Box is Oak Cross, a single malt which is a blend of three Highland single malt whiskies (from the villages of Teaninich, Brora and Carron) all aged approximately 10 years. The whiskies are aged for their primary maturation in a mix of American oak cask types and the marrying casks are a mix of first-fill Bourbon barrels and their proprietary "Oak Cross" casks made of American and new French oaks. The resulting whisky is meant to marry the best of American and French oak flavors. The tasting notes say that it has flavors of clove and vanilla with a subtle fruit character. The new whisky sells for $40.

Tags: alcohol, compass box, CompassBox, spirits, whisky

Filed under: Spirits

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DKB_SATX Nov 1st 2006 3:20PM

Unclear on the concept? You wrote: "a single malt which is a blend of three Highland single malt whiskies" which would indicate that this is a BLENDED whisky, the fact that it is a blend of single malts may make it taste better but certainly doesn't make this one a single malt. The reason singles are so popular among us drunks..er.. whisky connoisseurs is that it's much more of an accomplishment to make a beautiful-tasting whisky in one pass from start to finish than it is to blend finished whiskies together to attain your target flavor.

Whisky School Nov 3rd 2006 5:05PM

DKB has noticed a point here but missed another I think. The vast majority of single malts that are bottled (from the same distillery and mostyle from the same year of distillation) are in fact blends of many different casks. Each cask has a degree of indivduality, sometimes they can be quite different if the cask has been used often, or is of a different oak specie, and many distilleries will very conciously 'create' a house style by careful selection and 'vatting' of a variety of casks. Macallan demonstrate this approach on their tours.

Total purity is a single cask bottling, but this is a much rarer item. Each cask - ballpark - will output 200-500 bottles. Many standard single malt scotches are created with an output of between 5,000 and 20,000 bottles per batch - and that's a lot of casks.