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An Online Whisky Event hosted by Todd Morrison from Destination Cellars and Ross Blainey, National Brand Ambassador with The Balvenie Distillery.

Destination Cellars bring you the fourth installment of our Distant Socialising events for an evening of great whisky and stories with our international favourites The Balvenie Distillery, where you can enjoy a guided tasting of The Balvenie Stories Series with Ross (including a thousand dollar bottle!) from the comfort of your own home . This virtual tasting event went live at 7.30pm Wednesday May 20th.

Here is what Ross has to say about The Balvenie Stories series:

At The Balvenie, stories are our lifeblood. It's what everything is built on. The people that make our whisky, whether they have been with us for 6 years or 60, are absolutely full of them! This is a range of whisky that is based around the stories of how the whisky came to be. The 12, Sweet Toast of American oak is the first creation from our apprentice malt master Kelsey McKechnie and the story of her journey to create the flavour she was looking for. The 14, The Week of Peat we have our previous distillery manager Ian Miller who discussed some innovation with David Stewart MBE, Malt Master and using a spare week in the production schedule put together a beautifully sweet and smoky dram. And finally the Day of Dark Barley, 26. From a rainy day in 1991 using very innovative techniques within the barley, an unexpected whisky in more ways than one. This will be the final release of this whisky as only one batch was made back in 1991 so this is not only a very special 26 year old malt but incredibly rare and about to become much more rare.

Here's the line up of great Balvenie drams:

1. DoubleWood 12 Year Old Single Malt Whisky

A DC favourite dram to get the taste buds going, DoubleWood 12 was launched in 1993, using a process designed by our Malt Master David Stewart in 1982, now commonly known as 'wood finishing'. To make The Balvenie DoubleWood, David Stewart MBE takes whisky that has spent at least 12 years in traditional whisky casks, American Oak ex-bourbon barrels and hogsheads, and moves it to Spanish oak ex-Oloroso sherry casks for an additional nine months. Bottled at 40%abv.

2. The Sweet Toast of American Oak 12 Year Old Single Malt Whisky

Inspired to produce an even fruitier, sweeter Balvenie, Apprentice Malt Master Kelsey McKechnie had the bright idea to import Virgin Oak barrels from Kentucky. After deep toasting them at The Balvenie Cooperage they were filled with Balvenie aged in ex-bourbon barrels. The result is a delectably complex whisky with notes of candied fruit, coconut and delicate vanilla. Bottled at 43%abv.

3. The Week of Peat 14 Year Old Single Malt Whisky

Eager to experiment with The Balvenie profile using what he had learnt from a recent trip to Islay, distillery manager Ian Millar ordered a batch of Speyside peat for the kiln. For a week a year, The Balvenie distills a batch of peated malt, resulting in a whisky rich in honey, vanilla and citrus notes with an extra layer of delicate smokiness. Bottled at 48.3%abv.

4. A Day of Dark Barley 26 Year Old Single Malt Whisky

The arrival at the distillery of a batch of dark roasted malted barley, more commonly used in the production of stout, marked the beginning of a 26-year long experiment. The result was a pleasing depth – smokiness and oakiness as well as the classic honey, vanilla and citrus flavours. Bottled at 47.8%abv.

Destination Cellars bring you the second installment of our Distant Socialising events for an evening of great drams with our friends at Lark Distillery, where you can enjoy Bill's guided tasting (including two brand new releases) from the comfort of your own home . This is the recording of the online tasting event from Wednesday April 29th.

Destination Cellars bring you the second instalment of our Distant Socialising events for an evening of great drams with our friends at Lark Distillery, where you can enjoy Bill's guided tasting (including two brand new releases) from the comfort of your own home . This virtual tasting event went live at 7pm Wednesday April 29th. Here's the line up of great Lark drams:

1. CLASSIC CASK Single Malt Whisky 43%abv A dram to get the taste buds going. Approachable but complex, our Classic Cask 43% is a whisky made for sharing, celebrating, and enjoying. Handcrafted in the Coal River Valley, it’s a true labour of love from the second it leaves our distillery to the moment the cork is popped and the whisky is enjoyed. Double-distilled in locally crafted copper-pot stills and aged in carefully selected small casks, the Classic Cask features the citrus and butterscotch of the Lark house style with a hint of Tasmanian peat. A great balance of sweet, spicy and savoury elements make this the perfect everyday dram for whisky-lovers on all stages of their whisky drinking journey.

2. NEW! DISTILLER'S SELECTION LD1182 44%abv Single Cask Port Cask In the spirit of exploration, our Distiller’s Selection releases are specially selected by our distillers as whiskies that are intriguing and different, showcasing unique flavours outside of Lark house style. Copper-coloured, rich and intense, LD1182 spent its entire life in a single ex-Seppeltsfield Port Cask. Only 114 bottles produced

3. NEW! LIMITED EDITION SHIRAZ CASK 2020 42%abv The Limited Release Shiraz Cask is the perfect partnership between some of the biggest, most robust red wine casks from South Australia, and rich, oily single malt whisky from our Coal River Valley Distillery in Tasmania. We laid our spirit down in hand-selected Barossa Valley Shiraz Casks and have been watching it slowly mature and develop. The result is a Tasmanian single malt whisky that highlights our famous bold spirit style against the signature red fruit aromas, tannic structure and lingering pepper-leaf finish of Barossa Valley Shiraz from South Australia.

4. Sláinte Whisky Liqueur Sláinte marries our finest single malt whisky with a closely-guarded selection of botanicals to produce a delightfully complex and velvety liqueur. The two are carefully combined to give the right complexity of character, spiciness and sweetness, whilst maintaining the delightful overtones of the whisky. Named for the Gaelic toast to good health.

The Destination Cellars crew invite you to the first 'Distant Socialising' event with Tim Duckett - the man behind the Heartwood and Tasmanian Independent Bottlers (TIB) whisky labels - as he takes us on a guided tasting of a selection of drams from his multi award winning stable of whiskies.

Tim Duckett (Mr H) talks TIB and Heartwood with Todd Morrison of Destination Cellars while guiding us through an online whisky tasting session on Zoom on 22 April 2020.

Heartwood & Tasmanian Independent Bottlers teamed up again with Destination Cellars for an evening of great drams, but this time you can enjoy the drams and erudite banter from Mr H from the comfort of your own home . Our first virtual tasting event went live at 7pm Wednesday April 22nd.

Here's a line up to make you salivate:

1. You will get the first look at the pre-release of the TIB Vatted Malt #3 at 49.6% abv consisting of two ex-Sherry casks from 'a Renowned NSW Distillery', & a splash of peated ex-Sherry cask from local Adams Distillery.

2. TIB RD0027 Sherry Cask 47.9% - Gold Medal at the Wizards of Whisky 2020

3. TIB 'Renowned NSW Distillery' Release 3 matured in two ex-Sherry casks (TIB ??0017 & ??0018) before bottling at 46.1%

4. Heartwood Wizards Sceptre the latest high octane release. This is composed of 100 litres of an old Fino Sherry Lark LD 766 cask, with about 80 litres added from Old Kempton RD 109 Oloroso Sherry cask, and to finish it off, a fair splash of a smoky, peaty bomb from Belgrove PB 121.

TIB is run by local alchemist Tim Duckett (aka Mr H), producer of the famed high-octane Heartwood brand, who has created TIB to offer a more gentle style of whisky with less 'mongrel' than the Heartwood releases. Heartwood has won countless awards on some of the most prestigious whisky stages over the past decade and TIB is now following suit.

He sources spirit from Tasmania, mainland Australia, and New Zealand based on its texture and flavour profile. It is then matched to a specific barrel type. Currently they have selected 15 barrel types for maturation of the spirit including:
Sherry, Port, Bourbon, Muscat, Botrytis, Virgin oak, Re-educated 2nd fill, Rum, Bourbon Rum, Sherry Rum, Tokay, PX, Rye, Whisky beer. Also they will have oats, rye, & apple spirit. Exciting times.

TIB Awards: The Wizards of Whisky World Whisky Awards 2019 Australasian Producer of the Year 2019 Tasmanian Independent Bottlers. 2018 Independent Bottlers Challenge Winner.

International Brand Ambassador Chloe Wood came down to Ol' Hobart Town and launched the Octomore 10 series and added a few extra treats from the distillery.

  We welcomed the fabulous multi award winning Old Pulteney & AnCnoc Distilleries to Hobart on Tuesday evening at 6.30pm on October 15th at Destination Cellars. A fun night was had by all.Pulteney Distillery is one of the most northerly distilleries on the Scottish mainland. The extreme location and unique stills have resulted in a Single Malt Scotch Whisky that is bursting with the power and subtlety of the sea with a beautifully floral and juicy malt. Crafted by the sea Old Pulteney is the embodiment of history, people and place.Old Pulteney, affectionately known as the ‘Maritime Malt’ uses first...