Origin: Highlands (Scotland)
Type: Single Malt Scotch Whisky
Strength: 50%ABV
Ageing casks: Ex-Bourbon, ex-Sherry and new
Chillfiltered: No
Added colouring: No
Owner: Douglas Laing
Average price: € 90.00
Official website: www.strathearndistillery.com
One of the smallest realities of contemporary Scotch whisky, Stratherarn was founded in 2013 on a farm near Perth by three enthusiasts, Tony Reeman-Clark, David Lang and David Wight. And when you say small, it really was: 1000 and 500 litres between wash and spirit still, entirely manual and somewhat borderline in craft practices. Experimentation with various qualities of barley, peated and unpeated, other woods besides oak for maturation resulting in what, of course, could not be called scotch, and making other spirits.
First official bottling in 2016, a single Octave cask, which was followed by other sporadic releases, until the current ownership, bottler Douglas Laing, bought it in 2019.
Doubling of production, abandonment of alternative woods, still artisanal (but more structured) processing, use of Maris Otter barley (common mostly in breweries), very long fermentations and first bottling of the rebirth in 2022 with a new make, The Heart.
The first (i.e. second) official single malt is in 2024, with the Inaugural Release in 10,200 from the vatting of 32 casks, followed by today’s tasting in April 2025, with the same composition of casks in which, however, the presence of new ones has decreased in favour of ex-bourbon ones.
Tasting Notes
A potpourri of cereals and nuts, intense, full-bodied aromas that reach the nostrils, flooding them with malt, nuts, peanuts and coconut oil. In support are spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, white pepper), propolis, toffee, baked apple, Digestive biscuits and a slightly balsamic vegetal vein, especially along the length. The cereal part is very intense, almost fodder-like, and the alcohol is fully integrated. Agricultural.
Spicy and lively on the palate, with a nice oiliness dragging abundant spices (black pepper, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon) and always cereal in the foreground, between rye bread and malt (and cinnamon) biscuits, with an important contribution of nuts. Caramel, toffee, milk chocolate, baked apple (at times strudel), liquorice root and again a vegetal note, of black tea, tobacco and rhubarb. The balsamic, slightly mentholated vein returns to close the drink.
Quite long finish, spicy and bitter, of nuts, liquorice root, malt, vegetal and menthol notes.
An intense and full-bodied youngster, just waiting to grow, showing all its potential in the meantime with a full and fat whisky, where complexity is absent but shows great potential.
Vote: 83/100