Bankhall First Release

Bankhall distillery in Blackpool have released their first single malt whisky

It's a single virgin oak cask giving 225 bottles @ 57.4% ABV

Bankhall have a very unique still and condenser setup: three stills each with the option of using copper or stainless steel condensers. he triple distilled spirit can be identified as one of 4 types: CCC, SCC, CSC or SSC depending upon the Condensers used (Copper or Stainless Steel). I visited the distillery in December 2021 - more info here!

In this case Scottish Laureate Malt has fermented and then distilled through the triple pots using all copper condensers. The CCC liquid was put into a virgin American oak cask which had been charred to level 4, after three years it produced 225 bottles.

Distillery info:

This 3 year old English Single Malt Whisky was the first spirit to flow through our budding distillery back in April of 2020.

We’re celebrating the momentous occasion with a Single Barrel release at Cask Strength - 57.4%

We filled into a Char 4, New American Oak cask that creates an expression bold from the punch of the barrel, and balanced from our elegant triple pot distilled, creamy new make.

Explore flavours of orange marmalade, vanilla bean, butterscotch, cinnamon, cacao nibs, marzipan and toasted oak.

Distilled with an intrepid spirit in Blackpool, England. 225 bottles have been filled, and hand numbered.

Bankhall have decided to mature this, and I guess a good amount of their early distillate in virgin American Oak, very unusual! Many distilleries have used virgin oak for a finish but not many for full maturation. Glenmorangie's Director if Distilling, Dr. Bill Lumsden, said "Great care must be taken when doing this, as the onslaught of flavours from the new toasted or charred oak can sometimes overwhelm the rest of the liquid, resulting in a one-dimensional-tasting whisky", let's see what Vince and the team at Bankhall have done.

Cask 20-EM005 being sent off for bottling!

My thoughts:

Appearance: Dark orangey gold in the glass, swirls cling as a thin line, take their time to bead up and fall as slow thin oily legs.

Nose: Thick shred orange marmalade to start, sweet honey and caramel follow. There's more candied peel type notes, vanilla and white chocolate. There does seem to be a little bourbon type influence in here too. A little time and air offers soft smoke (char), ginger spice and a little coconut.

Palate: Thick sweet zingy arrival, all the orange marmalade and honey from the nose are back, there's some dry cinnamon and a bite of ginger spice (the ABV makes itself know!). There's a dry nutty note which strips the moisture from your tongue leaving a lovely spice. Further sips offer tropical fruit, Bounty Bar notes and more of that orange zest!

Finish: lingering dry spice, marmalade and brown sugar.

Overall: It's not more than a few days older than 3 years but there's no new make notes here but there is a passing hint of bourbon to it - maybe the heavily charred virgin oak cask? Can this tell us anything about the distillery character? An interesting question as usually we judge this through 'plain' ex-bourbon casks and this one hasn't seen any bourbon. I can't remember any distillery launching their first single malt in virgin oak and more recently nothing this young in anything but STR / bourbon / sherry marriages.

The price is also a little steep - at £100 it's at the very top end of what I'm prepared to pay (this was a bottle split with a few friends so a little easier on the pocket!) I get it's a first release and it's a single cask at cask strength but £20 or so cheaper would have been better.

There's only 225 bottles of this around and as the distillery is about to close down and relocate out of Blackpool maybe one of the only bottles of fully matured in Blackpool you are likely to see.

Geeky Stuff:

This release came from Cask #20-EM005 so filled in (April) 2020 using English Malt and the 5th cask filled that year - except they started from 000 so this is in fact the 6th cask they'd ever filled!