LOT ID: 0424-515
End Date : May 29 2024 08:17 PM
One cask of Ben Nevis Single Malt Scotch Whisky distilled on the 29/03/1996 currently maturing at Ben Nevis Distillery in Scotland. Annual storage fees currently stand at £0.41per week and the new owner must make arrangements directly with the warehouse after the sale. Contact details will be given by the current cask owner.
This cask was re-gauged on the 05/2024. The new re-gauged litres were found to be approximately 138.32 bulk litres at a strength of 48.9%. This would currently yield approximately 197 x 70cl bottles of whisky currently at 28 years old.
- Distillery: Ben Nevis
- Originally filled: 29/03/1996
- Current age: 28 years old
- Cask number: 406
- Cask type: Hogshead
- Original filled with: 158.4 litres of alcohol at 63.6%
- Original bulk litres: 247
- Current cask strength 48.9%
- New re-gauged bulk litres: 138.325
- Currently yielding: Approximately 197 x 70cl bottles
Ownership of this cask is auctioned here in bond. The buyer will have ownership transferred to them once payment is processed post sale. Any costs relating to removal from the bond or bottling will be the responsibility of the new cask owner.
Once payment for this Lot is received from the buyer, the money will be held by Whisky-Online Ltd and only transferred to the seller once the buyer is in full legal receipt of the cask to ensure buyer's transaction is fully protected. Payment is strictly by bank transfer.
Non-UK based owners/buyers must appoint a Duty Representative to act on his/her behalf for transfer of ownership. Customs & Excise refer to the owners as the representative’s. Please be aware of this regulation before bidding. We can assist you in getting a UK representative if required.
Whisky-Online Auctions Tasting Notes:
Few whiskies evoke the same level of reverence and intrigue as those produced at the Ben Nevis Distillery during the mid to late 1990s. This particular cask, distilled in 1996, stands as a testament to this golden era, embodying the essence of this legendary distillery in its every drop.
Nose: An initial rich and deep honeyed aroma with notes of Tarte aux Pommes, give way to enticing tropical fruit. A thickening emulsion of Mango, pineapple, apricot, Guadeloupe melon, and passion fruit threaten with soft baking spices and musky florality waiting in the wings. Still, brightness leaps from the glass.
Palate: Fruit and spice reveal themselves with tined pineapple juice, fruit salad and elderflower cordial with cinnamon buns and a warming cracked black pepper note which thoroughly qualifies this spirit as “’96 Ben Nevis”. Moreover, the distinctive viscosity of the make. Luxurious oiliness and thick tropical fruit are bolstered by a spirity inflection of pear drops and frangipane enhance overwhelming evidence its provenance.
Finish: A long engaging perambulation emerging from tropical fruit chews, through a field of summer heather to a specialist panettone bakery.
Comments: An excellent example of a sought after vintage of Ben Nevis that could be enjoyed both imminently with it’s fruitier animated fruits bathed in its luxurious mouth feel. Or equally, left to absorb more of the deeper spicey notes held within the cask for another year or two. A Single Malt Scotch that is proving difficult to find in todays market. And is highly sort after for good reason.
Founded in 1825 by ‘Long John’ MacDonald, Ben Nevis is one of the classic Highland distilleries. Ben Nevis was purchased in the 1940s by Joseph Hobbs, who fitted a Coffey still enabling the distillery to produce both malt and grain whisky. A mothballed Ben Nevis was sold in 1981 to Long John Distillers (Whitbread), who refurbished the distillery and restarted production before selling up in 1989 to the Japanese firm Nikka, under whose stewardship the distillery has thrived.
For much of its early life Ben Nevis supplied the famous Dew of Ben Nevis blended whisky and single malt official bottlings were sporadic. That all changed after 1989, when Nikka bottled a 63-year-old Ben Nevis 1926 and embarked on an impressive run of vintage single casks and small batches alongside a core range 10-year-old. The early Nikka bottlings of 1960s & ‘70s vintages are particularly highly sought after. Independent Ben Nevis is abundant.
A private bottling is a cask of single malt or single grain whisky that has been bottled privately by its owner or owners, and usually bottles are not released for public sale. Private bottlings may sometimes be bottled for their owners by the distillery of origin, but are not official bottlings by that distillery.
Alternatively, if the cask is not housed at the distillery where it was made, it may be bottled either by another distillery or private cask storage facility, or transported to a third party commercial bottler.
Private bottlings used to be relatively common, a legacy of the whisky lake of the 1980s, when distilleries had excess stock and were desperate to offload their inventory. These kinds of casks rarely make it to private bottlings nowadays - casks that were very inexpensive twenty or thirty years ago have shot up in value, and distilleries have scrambled to buy back privately-owned casks of their own spirit, while cask owners are rarely short of offers from brokers or independent bottlers.
| BID | DATE | TIME | |
|---|---|---|---|
| £20,700.00 | 29th May 2024 | 20:07 | |
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