This month, these two whisky giants collide with the collaboration you’ve been waiting for. Starward and The Whisky Club have teamed up to create something truly special, and it’s coming straight to your whisky shelf this month!

Originally called New World Projects, reflecting the distillery’s original name, Starward Projects is an outlet for the distillery staff to push the boundaries of what whisky can be, by doing what they do best – expressing their creativity with experimentation with new and exciting techniques, concocting unique limited releases to unleash upon their waiting public.

The whisky lovers of Australia have embraced the concept, with every hotly anticipated release snapped up in next to no time. Their Ginger Beer Cask has achieved cult status, now having had four releases, and the online sales of Starward’s first ever Bourbon Cask – the introductory release for the new Starward Projects label – in late 2018 sold out in only four hours. Yup, you’ve gotta be quick!

With Starward’s NOVA the backbone of their core range, we wanted to take it to a whole new level… to create something of a Super-NOVA, if you will. Rather than using Starward’s traditional “minimum intervention” casks, we’ve used charred American oak hogsheads and French oak barriques to create a big, beautiful, rich and intense single malt, bursting with strawberry jam, blackberries, sultanas, juicy red fruits, oak tannins and deep toasty malt. And it wouldn’t fully be taken to the next level without a decent bump in ABV either, it’s been bottled at 48% ABV – well above NOVA’s 41%. Yum. Oh, and if that’s not enough, in true Whisky Club style, we’ve made sure our Charred Red Wine Casks release is a full-size 700ml bottle – not the 500ml size Projects are normally released at.

Such is the popularity (and, dare we say, scarcity) of the Projects releases, to keep things fair the distillery introduced a ballot system to allocate bottles to super keen collectors and drinkers alike. While this “luck of the draw” system works well, here at The Whisky Club we want as many people as possible to be able to get their lips around our special Starward, so we’re bringing our Members this newest Projects release without needing Lady Luck on your side. All you need to do to secure your bottle is make sure you’re signed up to the Club by midnight Sunday, April 7. Easy!

If you’re a Starward superfan, or just keen to learn more about what all the fuss is about, for the first time ever here’s a full list of New World Projects/Starward Projects releases to date, for your reading and collecting pleasure:

29/04/2014  Ginger Beer Barrel
27/06/2014  Single Cask bottling #2
01/09/2014  Oak Barrel Whisky Fair Bottling
01/09/2014  Baranows PX Cask
12/08/2014  3.5 Year Old White PX
14/11/2014  Lui Bar
03/12/2014  Summer Gin 2014 Strawberry & Mint

08/01/2015  Ginger Beer Cask #2
27/02/2015  Open Day 2015 Bottling
23/03/2015  Single Cask #3
13/05/2015  Double Cask #1
13/05/2015  Autumn Gin
03/07/2015  Port(er) #1
15/09/2015  Small Batch Gin-Korenwijn
04/08/2015  Oak Barrel WF
10/08/2015  PX Whisky
16/09/2015  Carwyn Cellars
10/10/2015  Vintage Cellars PX Batch 2
13/10/2015  Lui Bar #2 (Reverse Double)
10/12/2015  Old Fashioned

22/02/2016  Project 55 Gin
13/05/2016  100 L Wine Cask W&A
24/08/2016  Barrel Aged Korenwijn
02/09/2016  First Distillery Last Release (Rocky)
20/09/2016  VC PX
21/09/2016  Dram Full Single Cask
19/12/2016  Boulevardier

01/02/2017  Ginger Beer Cask #3
05/04/2017  Lui Bar #3
10/04/2017  Brisbane
25/05/2017  Distillery Only Single Cask
01/06/2017  Project 10
04/10/2017  Faire Ferments Brandy Spirit
25/10/2017  Bathtub Gin
20/11/2017  W+A Single Cask #2

11/01/2018  Summer Bathtub Gin
11/01/2018  Cognac Cask Project – 1817
27/03/2018  Autumn Gin
19/07/2018  Bourbon Cask Project
28/08/2018  Spring Black Lime Gin ID: 1933
22/11/2018  Ginger Beer Cask #4
06/12/2018  Barrel Aged Cherry Gin

27/02/2019  Charred Red Wine Casks for The Whisky Club

How many of these have you tried, and which is your favourite so far? Let us know in the comments, and don’t miss out on the Starward Charred Red Wine Casks, created exclusively for The Whisky Club this April.