Now, this is something very different for a change. An awful lot of the bottles I have are of a similar Scottish vain. This is not unreasonable given I sit in the central belt of Scotland but as Whisky becomes more profitable other countries want in on the act. Japan is one obvious example but did you know Thailand has a modern distillery distributing single malt whisky in the Scotch style using two sets of stills imported from Scotland?

The Distillery

This picture from the distillery website is great and shows the juxtaposition between two cultures. The foreground could be anywhere in Scotland and the background is traditional Thailand. The distillery itself is a new build with an underground warehouse for up to 50,000 barrels. Given this is the first distillery of its kind in the country the team were trained in Scotland and the peated malted barley for their peated runs comes from Scotland as well. All this makes sense when you learn the distillery is owned by InterBev who also own some of my favourite distilleries in Scotland ( Old Pulteney, Balblair, Speyburn, Balmenach and Knockdhu)

All of this is interesting and quite cool. The part I struggle to understand is the business case for a whisky which looks and feels Scottish, produced in a facility which looks like a scaled up version of any Scottish distillery. Is this just a way to produce whisky cost effectively on the other side of the world with low labour costs, fast maturation and (probably) competitive taxation rules or was there another business case being explored here?

The Whisky

The Select Cask is one of 3 releases in a trilogy which announced the entry of the brand to worldwide distribution. The Select cask is like your straight ex-bourbon option with a peated one and a sherry cask one making up the other two releases. Each are 43% ABV and available for between 60 and 80 pounds.

Tasting Notes

Colour	orange-yellow
Nose	Sweet and fruity, peaches, mango, vanilla pods, crunchy melon skins
Palate	mint toothpaste, syrup from tinned fruit which has that slight metallic after taste to it as well
Finish	lots of cough mixture which took me by surprise after a fruity mellow experience up to now, white pepper

Where Can I Buy?

Master of Malt – Select Cask

Whisky Exchange – Prakaan Select Cask : The Whisky Exchange

Final Thoughts

A nice and interesting summer dram, still not sure if anyone would ever think this is from the World Whisky Category. Without any kind of market education though I don’t see anyone picking this bottle off a shelf in a shop. The marketing reminds me of cheap Ben Nevis from early 2010’s and no-one wants to be known as that