Triple Distilled Peated Malt 25PPM Pedro Ximenez Cask

122 litres | Cask 395144 | Distilled 19.12.2022 | Bond Code CW000765

About Our Pedro Ximenez Casks

These 120-130 litre casks have been cut down from larger casks that were used to mature high-quality Pedro Ximenez Sherry. Each cask has held sherry for a long period of time, at least 15 years. They have a lot more activity within the wood than standard casks, making them suitable for accelerated ageing and early bottling. Similar to some of our own small barrels that we have used for our award-winning Celtic Cask series we are confident that customers will be happy and rewarded with some excellent whiskey once bottled.

Pedro Ximenez casks are currently riding a wave of popularity for whiskey maturation. Surprisingly to most consumers, is that Pedro Ximenez is a white grape variety. It is grown throughout Andalucia but the area producing the sweetest & richest examples is Montilla-Moriles. After the PX or Pedro Ximenez grapes are picked, they are then left to dry in the sun which reduces the freshly picked grapes to become more raisin like. This process is called Asoleo and concentrates both the sugar and the acidity. Once pressed, these concentrated grapes are fermented in such a way that only part of the sugar is converted into alcohol leaving extremely high sugar levels. The wine is then aged oxidatively which produces very dark wines that are syrupy, super sweet, concentrated with flavours of figs, raisins, chocolate and coffee. The resultant PX casks can add very rich flavours to the whiskey that’s matured in them.

Ireland might not have had many peated whiskeys for a number of decades but with the main fuel source in Ireland going back centuries being turf it only seems natural that a number of Irish Whiskeys would have been peated in style. Already, there have been a number of peated single malts released from the Great Northern Distillery including our very own Celtic Cask Fiche A Cuig. Despite its youth, it's an excellent whiskey. In our opinion, young peated whiskey is better at masking its youth over unpeated equivalents. The malt used is 25ppm Phenol (lower than the 55PPM previously used at Great Northern), but this gets reduced by the Triple Distillation in the final spirit.

Triple Distilled Peated Single Malt Production

Great Northern Distillery source Irish barley which is malted in Ireland with the barley being dried by turf/peat smoke. The PPM level is 25 at this stage. The grains are wet milled, breaking open the grains to form a grist. Mashing is when this grist is mixed with hot water in the lauter tun which then turns the starch into a sugary liquid called wort. The wort is then converted into a beer-like liquid once yeast is added. The yeast converts the sugar into alcohol and it's now called wash. The wash is then triple distilled in Great Northern’s giant copper pot stills. The spirit is put into cask at 63% ABV and on this occasion will be casked in a first fill American Bourbon barrel.