Israeli matured whisky cask #2 (AR.JR) is bottled!

This is not an April fools day hoax, it’s very real. (just to be sure)

So, An Israeli whisky? well, sort of.  Actually we’re talking about Scotch made whisky, which has been shipped to Israel for maturation. To make a long story short, The Israeli Whisky Society (IWS) acquired a few casks from the Arran distillery in scotland in an attempt to create a unique whisky, matured in Israel’s climate and then to be bottled in single casks bottling. Why you ask? well, as you well know, there is no Israeli distillery operating currently, so getting Israeli new spirit and maturing it here is not possible. So, the next best thing is to try and mature other stock (Scottish is best, right? 🙂 )  and see how the climate and storage conditions do affect the end product.

A few casks were sent over, and placed in a different places to mature. The first, was placed in the cellar of the Scottish Hotel in Tiberias (quite fitting), a wonderful old building with a big cellar. and bottled last year, at the tender age of 3 years (You must remember that Israel has a very hot climate compared to Scotland, so maturation happens fast, and the Angel’s share is much bigger than what we’re used to in cold Scotland warehouses). I did have the “pleasure” of tasting that whisky almost a year ago, and i must say it was too young , wild and not very pleasant to drink. I did not keep my tasting notes, sadly but i don’ remember anything too fancy to report…

Today i just got an email about the 2nd round of those Single Casks bottling. This time the Cask was matured at the basements of the ‘American Colony’ hotel in Jerusalem, yea the holy city, which gives it quite a status – First whisky matured in Jerusalem. This time there are only 214 bottles (from Cask : No.06 / 80019) in this very exclusive bottling. The whisky is bottled at CS and is natural colored. I am not sure how old it is but i’m guessing this time over it’s supposed to be 4 years old. Quite young, but let’s hope that it’s more refined this time and of better quality.

If anyone is interested in getting a bottle of this very special release (i can not vouch for the quality, but the Arran – Jerusalm combination is surely very interesting) , please contact me and i will see if i can arrange something if any bottles are not already pre-ordered.

i will post tasting notes about this beauty probably next month, when my bottle arrives.

לחיים!