New Society Bottle

I bring some exciting news this afternoon – the new Society bottle is now ready for purchase!

The October 2014 release is a Hazelburn 11 year old from a Fresh Bourbon Barrel. This was distilled in December 2002 and bottled at the beginning of this month. The ABV is 54.4% and it’s a tiny cask with only 204 bottles available. The price of this bottling is £60.00.

The cask we chose is one that our Distillery Manager, Gavin, was using as part of his special Warehouse Tastings. It always received fantastic compliments so we decided it would be perfect to bottle for our Society Members. I brought a bottle to TWE Whisky Show in London a couple of weekends ago and everyone who tasted it seemed to really enjoy it. The tasting notes for the Society Hazelburn 11yo are as follows:

Nose:  Instant scent of butterscotch, white chocolate, coconut and vanilla. As it develops, fruits such as pineapple and orange become very evident. Aromas of straw and hay come alive which are reminiscent of a summer meadow.

Palate:  A creamy, thick texture which coats the mouth nicely with salted peanut, fruity and earthy notes. Ginger and nutmeg spices are noticeable along with a rich sweetness similar to custard cream biscuits and pink marshmallows. A very well balanced dram.

Finish:  A wonderfully smooth and elegant finish with lingering fruitiness and hints of cappuccino and milk chocolate.

As we are getting such a small number of bottles, it will strictly be limited to one per person to begin with. It is doubtful but if there are some bottles leftover after 2 months then any member who would like to buy a second bottle will get the chance to.

If you would like to reserve a bottle then please email me ASAP as it will be based on a first come first served basis. As always, don’t worry if you don’t receive an instant reply back from me, it usually takes a while to work through all the emails which are sent to me after a new bottling!

For members who get their Society bottles sent to our 5 Cadenhead Shops out-with the UK, I’m afraid to say that it will be no longer possible to have your bottles sent to the Baden shop in Switzerland.

As we are now using a shipping company who are able to send to most countries, it is not as important to use the Cadenhead shops as it once was. Also, due to different issues which have occurred with sending Society bottles to our European shops, the shops were all asked if they were happy to continue stocking the Society bottles or if they would like to stop stocking them altogether.

With instant effect, we will stop sending to Baden and only send to our shops in Berlin, Odense and Salzburg. As I write this newsflash, I have not received feedback from the Cologne shop so for the new bottling, we will continue sending as we have done in the past and if this changes for future bottlings then I will let you know ASAP. Therefore, for the new bottling we can ship to Berlin, Cologne, Odense and Salzburg.

If you would like your bottle delivered to any of the 4 Cadenhead shops mentioned then PLEASE state this when ordering your bottle. The next orders will not be sent to these shops until early 2015 so if you would like it sent there then please let me know and I can arrange it for the next shipment. As soon as I have a shipping date then I will let you know. Can I kindly ask that you wait until you have heard from me before phoning the shops to ask if they have arrived.

I have mentioned this in the past but just to remind members, any Society bottle which is sent to our European shops for collection MUST be collected within 2 months of arriving or else they will be put up for sale to any other Society member who is interested. It is unfair for the shops to keep these unpaid bottles for any longer than this so please collect it within this time frame.

USA Shipments 

In my newsletter from September, I advised of the 9 states within the USA which we could not ship to due to strict import laws. Since we received this list, we have tried to send to other states which are not listed and once again, we had problems. We have decided for the time being that we will stop all US shipments again as it is just costing us too much money to keep attempting to send and having them returned to us. It’s so frustrating for our members in the US as we had told you that we would now be able to ship but unfortunately there isn’t much we can do to resolve this at the moment. We will continue to work on the issue and hopefully we can resolve it in the near future.

Previous Society Bottlings Available

For any of our new Society members or anyone who would like to add to their collection of previous Society bottles, we still have the following bottles available:

• Longrow 10 year old – Fresh Sherry Butt at 53.9%
• Bottled in November 2011 (£45.00)

• Springbank 14 year old – 7 years in Bourbon, 7 years in Port at 55.7%
• Bottled in June 2012 (£50.00)

• Springbank 15 year old – 10 years Refill Bourbon, 5 years Fresh Madeira at 56.5%
• Bottled in March 2013 (£65.00)

• Springbank 14 year old (LOCAL BARLEY) – Refill Sherry Butt at 57.8%
• Bottled in April 2014 (£80.00)

If you are interested in purchasing any of the previous bottles listed above then please let me know and I can arrange this for you. Unfortunately they have all been UK duty paid meaning we can’t send them to any of the Cadenhead Shops out-with the UK but can of course send to you using our delivery service. If you would like a reminder of the prices for this then please email me and I will forward them on to you.

Anyway, I think that is all for the moment so thank you for reading and hope to speak to many of you soon!

Best regards,

Mairi

Mairi Paterson 

For the Springbank Society 

To join the Springbank Society please contact them at society@springbankwhisky.com