Hellyers Road Aged 16 Years Pinot Noir Cask Finish

We’re ABSOLUTELY THRILLED to present the Grand Finale in our hugely popular series of historic single malts from Australia’s biggest selling whisky distillery to Australia’s biggest community of whisky lovers:

Hellyers Road Aged 16 Years Pinot Noir Cask Finish.

Created Exclusively for The Whisky Club by Master Distiller and long-time fellow Club Member Mark Littler, as his very last whisky project before leaving Hellyers Road after nearly two decades at the helm, this historically significant malt bears witness to the story of Tasmanian whisky.

Distilled at a time when there were only four other whisky distilleries in Australia and made using Gairdner barley, a variety used in the early 2000s to make some of Tasmania’s best whiskies including Lark and Sullivans famed older single casks, this is a whisky that’s matured for over half the time the Tassie whisky industry has even existed.

Selected from whisky laid down in 2003 and 2004 it was finished in 2020 in the freshest Tasmanian Pinot Noir casks from Tasmania’s famous Tamar and Coal River valleys, the terroirs of the two wine regions imparting an added layer of complexity to compliment Hellyers’ unique marrying process.

As soon as the finishing casks reached an optimum maturation point and a flavour profile that Littler was happy with, they were married using an old Scottish technique that’s unique to Hellyers in Australia and assists with integration of the whisky and helps it mellow out before being broken down to its final ABV for bottling.

The secret is to dilute the whisky in the marrying vat to a unique ‘marrying’ strength before putting it into special ‘marrying casks’ and leaving them to settle for a further six months. Letting the whisky settle at a different ABV in these casks, and changing its solubility with the added water, affects its interaction with the sugars in the oak and this helps the whisky with its amalgamation even further.

Once this process was completed, the whisky was decanted for a third time and broken down to 46.2% ABV and bottled non-chill filtered and natural in colour, exclusively for The Whisky Club. 

What the French Oak Tasmanian Pinot Noir casks add to the already elegant and complex whisky is astonishing with the fruity orchard and berry notes of the wine casks really taking it to another level. This fruit forward whisky is complimented by some lovely buttery and integrated oak notes, leading to a fuller palate and a well-rounded finish as the flavour explodes in your mouth just like a chocolate liqueur. The flavours take you on a tour of Tasmania starting off with the apples and cherries of the Huon Valley, then along comes the malt and barley fields of Northern Tasmania before leaving you at one of Tasmania’s many wineries, with the rich wine influence remaining from the cask.

Crafted from Tasmanian barley and pure Tasmanian water, drawn from the best first fill American Oak casks in the distillery and then finished in the freshest Tasmanian wine casks, this is Hellyers Road at its finest.

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