UK. From the winner of the best mainland malt award for its Balblair 33 year old, Inver House Distillers has launched its latest creation from the distillery which overlooks the shores of the Dornoch Firth.
Situated in the village of Edderton, Balblair is one of Scotland’s oldest working distilleries. Specially selected by the distillery manager, the new limited edition is launching this month.
In luxurious black packaging, the new line extension is a 24 year old bourbon cask, unchill-filtered single malt Scotch whisky. A balanced, fully mature malt, it is slightly spicy with a sweet smoked oak finish.
Inver House brand manager Lesley Whitelaw commented: “We are positioning the 24 year old as the aficionado’s malt. Only five hundred cases will be produced and sold through specialist whisky outlets.”
The Balblair range consists of three other variations: Elements, 10 year old and 16 year old.
Inver House Distillers is reviewing the stock profile of its malt whiskies. Speaking to The Moodie Report in Cannes marketing manager Karen Duckering said: “We are looking to do more focussed launches of aged products. For Speyburn, which is the number ten malt in the US, we will be launching a 25 year old cask finish in the next two months. You can also expect a launch from Balmenach, where we have considerable stock laid down.
At the TFWA World Exhibition the company was also showing a clean white and gold re-packaging of the An Cnoc single malt and its non-Scotch whisky portfolio such as Kulov vodka and other white spirits and RTD products such as Big Beastie – a leader in the Scottish domestic RTD market.
“Today consumers have more choice with different cask finishes,” said Duckering. These are interesting times and we need to be clever with our line extensions.
“Now we are more marketing-focussed, rather than market-focussed.”
Note: Inver House Distillers was founded in 1964. Within the company’s portfolio, there are five distilleries including Pulteney (the Scottish mainland’s most northern distillery and producer of Old Pulteney and Old Pulteney Liqueur), Balbair, Speyburn, Knockdhu (producer of An Cnoc) and Balmenach. The company was bought by Pacific Spirit (UK) last year.
Travel retail enquiries to Inver House marketing manager Karen Duckering at email: karen_duckering@inverhouse.com
