Whistlepig 12 Year Old - The Boss Hog - Single Cask 12

WhistlePig started out as a whiskey bottler, sourcing a large parcel of stock of 10-year-old Canadian rye whiskey in 2009 and experimenting with a variety of different cask types in which to double-mature it. The company’s first bottling of this 10-year-old rye whiskey was finished in ex-bourbon and virgin oak casks and was an immediate hit, earning a record 96-point score for a rye whiskey from Wine Enthusiast.

Further finishing experiments soon followed, as WhistlePig embraced an adventurous wood policy, with unusual wine casks from Rivesaltes, Madeira and Sauternes all featuring in subsequent releases. The success of these whiskeys enabled the company to build their own distillery in Vermont in 2015, and in 2021 the company launched the first 100% WhistlePig distillery bourbon and rye whiskeys alongside their range of sourced whiskeys.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.