Wolfburn 2018 Single Malt Whisky

Wolfburn Distillery stands as Scotland's northernmost mainland whisky distillery, strategically positioned in the industrial district of Thurso, Caithness. The distillery's location was carefully selected just 350 meters from the historic ruins of the original 19th-century Wolfburn distillery, establishing a direct lineage to the past. Construction commenced in August 2012, with the inaugural distillation taking place in late January 2013. The distillery was founded under the expertise of former Glenfarclas manager Shane Fraser, who has since departed for a new role at a US distillery. The production facility features a modern 1.1-tonne semi-lauter stainless steel mash tun, four stainless steel fermentation tanks with a capacity of 5,500 liters each (utilizing a long fermentation period of 70-92 hours), a 5,500-liter wash still, and a 3,600-liter spirit still. Wolfburn employs a diverse cask maturation strategy, utilizing quarter casks, port pipes, and sherry butts to create complex flavor profiles. While the core production focuses on unpeated spirit, Wolfburn introduced lightly peated whisky production in 2014 at 10ppm phenol levels. The inaugural release in 2016 was a limited edition with a distinctive smoky character, achieved through maturation in quarter casks previously used for peated whisky from Islay. This was followed by the permanent core range: Northland (ex-bourbon cask matured, launched September 2016), Aurora (featuring Oloroso sherry cask influence), and Morven (the flagship peated expression and current bestseller, added in 2017). In 2018, Langskip joined the core range as a cask-strength bourbon-matured release at 58% ABV. Wolfburn's Small Batch limited edition series commenced in 2017 with No. 128 (lightly peated), followed by No. 270 (unpeated) in 2018, and No. 375 in 2019—a 4-year-old unpeated vatting of first-fill bourbon and refill sherry casks.