An EXCLUSIVE 700ml Whisky Release from an Australian DEDICATED PEATED Whisky Distillery – The Kinglake O’Grady’s Stand SMWC Special Edition.
It’s an all-Aussie peated lineup for at the Single Malt Whisky Club in March. Two distilleries that have definitely made a big impact on the Aussie whisky scene in the relatively short while they have been trading. The first, a dedicated PEATED whisky distillery – Kinglake and their O’Grady’s Stand SMWC Special 700ml Edition.
We’ve been chatting to Kinglake Distillery since before they released their inaugural whisky back in 2021, and we’re stoked to finally be able to collaborate with them on a special release – a SMWC exclusive release – the Kinglake O’Grady’s Stand SMWC Special 700ml Edition.
And to bring us home our Members Extra is another lightly peated offering from the cool new kids on the block – Cape Byron Distillery’s Peated Chardonnay Cask.
Now Kinglake distillery have a lot of ‘firsts’ and ‘one of very few’s’ to their name. They are the first (and currently only) ‘Carbon Neutral’ distillery in Australia. They are one of the very few that use completely untreated, unfiltered water sourced from a spring on their own property. Kinglake are also one of the very few Aussie whisky distilleries that are open-fermenting their wash, thus incorporating local wild yeasts into their flavour profile.
The Kinglake O’Grady’s Stand SMWC Special is made from a mash bill of 3 different NSW malts plus 25% imported Scottish, peated malt. Fermented using a mix of commercial and wild yeast in a open-top fermenter. Spirit taken from the tail end of the heart cut and just slightly into the tails makes this a big bodied, oily whisky that perfectly carries the peated influence here. Put down to age at around 68.5%abv. Matured in 50 and 100-litre American oak casks and bottled at 46% which perfectly suits the ‘big shoulders’ of this fantastic whisky.
The Kinglake O’Grady’s Stand is Kinglake’s flagship product and is normally only available in 500ml bottles. Frankly, we just didn’t think that 500ml was enough of this perfectly palatable pinnacle of peated pleasure … AND SO… We are proud to be presenting this to the SMWC at an exclusive 700ml size bottle at an incredible SMWC price of only $129.
OUR TASTING NOTES
Nose: Lovely dried apricots hit me first up, then a bouquet of floral notes – jasmine and frangipani in a rainstorm (petrichor) and vanilla pods freshly sliced, with new leather belt hovering around in the wings. Going back – there is a smokiness that’s much more apparent in a freshly finished glass than when I first started nosing the glass.
Palate: Lovely oiliness on the palate and medium warmth precedes a wave of fresh pastry notes with more of those vanilla and custard tones there as well. I also get a pleasant warm leather mustiness on the palate with sweet caramel and sultanas.
Finish: Ahh- citrus… I thought I was missing something, and it comes on in spades in the finish presenting as lovely candied peel.
Whilst this is definitely peated whisky, it’s a very mild and gentle peat indeed. Much more a musty caress than burning rubber in a hospital ward. This American Oak qualities (citrus, vanilla etc) come through clear as day and really make this lovely whisky ‘pop’.
The first PEATED release from the legendary Aussie Distillery, Cape Byron, founded by a whisky legend.
FROM KINGLAKE DISTILLERY
The O’Grady’s is very much the single malt we always set out to make.
When most other distilleries were using ex wine and fortified French Oak barrels, we made an early decision to use primarily ex-bourbon American oak. This was for two reasons:
First, the soft caramel and vanilla notes were a perfect counter-balance to our heavy, oily characterful spirit.
Second, American oak has a much gentler impact during the ageing process. It is often said that barrels provide 60% of the taste of a whisky. In the early days we would suggest that this was more 65-70% with majority of Australian offerings. We were aiming for 50/50 where the addition of oak created a perfect balance between wood and spirit.
Vanilla and caramel, delicate tobacco and leather. Long oily legs and mouthfeel.
ABOUT KINGLAKE DISTILLERY
Whisky fans, Chantal and I have always been huge fans of single malts in particular, because of just how diverse they can be. The different drinking experience of a Speyside and an Islay for example compared to different Vodka’s is incredible.
In Scotland this is usually equated to the characteristics of the distillery location and so this was the inspiration for our whisky.
We set out to make a single malt that was discernibly different from other Australian whiskies, something where regardless of barrel ageing, the characteristic Kinglake spirit could be picked out in a blind line up.
We realised that in Kinglake (and in our site in particular) we had a location that we were not only incredibly passionate about but could also lend our spirit unique characteristics.
Chantal a 3rd Generation Kinglaker, is passionate about what makes Kinglake a special place for a whisky distillery. Winters in Kinglake are hard. Months of wet, cold and dark weathe. This, together with all the adversity of the past bush-fires makes the people who stay there a determined breed with a special relationship to the area and it’s local businesses.
This local micro-climate affects the ageing process of the whisky. Extremes of temperature during the barrel-ageing process are a feature of most Australia malts however adding in the very high humidity of Kinglake is more unique.
The most important Kinglake variable that allows us to make a very distinctive spirit is our use of local Spring Water. Chyser Creek rises from a natural Spring located on the distillery property. After analysis we realised that this water has the perfect iron and calcium characteristics for making whisky. It is used directly from the source, completely un-treated. We are one of very few distilleries in Australia that has its own source of water, the foundation of any single malt.
Our isolated off-grid distillery location away from main roads, flight paths and housing mean air pollution is low. Because of this we are one of only a handful of distilleries using open ferments for our whisky wash. We are surrounded by towering Mountain Ash, Messmate and Peppermint gumtrees and the air in hot weather is pungent with eucalyptus pollens. Our open ferments and open-door distilling allows all these natural pollens and yeasts to become part of the fermentation process.
The final piece of the jigsaw in translating these local features into our new-make spirit is our approach to our second distillation and our final cut runs deep into the tails or feints. This not only means that we harvest the maximum impact from the chocolate and peat in our four-grain mash-bill but that all the richness and depth from foibles of using unfiltered water and open fermentations are given a chance to shine.
Because the natural environment is so fundamental to our whisky, we are very conscious of doing what we can to promote looking after it. As such we not only donated 1/3 of our 50 acres property to Greenfleet to re-wild back to natural bush, we were the first (and still the only) Australia distillery making a Carbon Neutral whisky (albeit it’s important to state this not only involves committing to reducing our carbon footprint annually but also purchasing offsets).
