To kick off 2026, The Whisky Exchange has three exclusive bottlings that will certainly keep you warm on a chilly winter day! All three releases are available now from The Whisky Exchange in store and online.
Torabhaig 2018 Scottish Oak Single Cask (251 bottles) – 58.7% ABV, £99.95 – The Whisky Exchange Exclusive
With exclusive bottlings from The Whisky Exchange we always aim to bring something different to whisky fans. Something they might not have experienced before. And this bottling certainly ticks the box. Distilled at Torabhaig, the Isle of Skye’s second licenced distillery, this peaty whisky is finished for 16 months in a rare Scottish-oak cask.
Scottish oak is seldom seen in whisky making as it’s notoriously hard to work with. Instead of the tall, straight trees found in the USA and used for Bourbon casks, Scottish oak can be much shorter and gnarlier, with knots that break up the wood. The team at Torabhaig felt it was worth this effort to add an extra sense of place to this experimental release, which has a well-integrated smokiness, with baked apples and well-worn leather.
Bardstown Bourbon Co 8 Year Old Single Barrel (144 bottles) – 64.6% ABV, £125 – The Whisky Exchange Exclusive
This is a delicious whiskey with winter flavours in abundance. Rich and intense, there’s brown sugar, stewed fruit and a touch of spicy and herbal rye.
We have plenty of information on this bottling to indulge those who are into the details too. It’s a 78/10/12 mashbill of corn, rye and malted barley, sour mashed, fermented for three days in open-top fermenters, distilled in a 36” column still with a doubler to 130 proof, and then cut back to 120 proof before being filled into a single 53 gallon, new American-white-oak cask with a #3 char.
Or for the less detail-oriented, it’s perhaps the best whiskey we’ve tasted from Bardstown to-date.
Hampden Estate HLCF 2023 Sherry Cask – 64.6%, £150 – The Whisky Exchange Exclusive
Sherry casks are a relatively new experimentation at Hampden Estate that the team at The Whisky Exchange has enjoyed discovering. This enjoyment led to a negotiation which secured this delicious single pot-still rum, aged in a cask from sherry maker Bodegas Fundador and bottled exclusively for The Whisky Exchange. The rum itself has a classically Jamaican funky character with tropical fruits, stacks of sugarcane grassiness and rich, dried-fruit notes from the cask.
