Rare Cask Reserves 21 Year Old Cruinnich Surfaces Down Under

The William Grant & Sons independent Scotch whisky company is aiming to make its Rare Cask Reserves releases – focused upon bringing rarer in house aging spirit and sourced whisky alike to a thirsty public – something of a global brand it looks like. The latest expression in this line up, Cruinnich, is being made available for purchase only in Australia.

So far we’ve seen Rare Cask Reserves offerings turning up exclusive to European travel retail stores, select UK retailers and a few American liquor stores. Now Cruinnich, a 21 year old Scotch drawn from unknown older whisky stock, is being made available exclusive for Australian liquor retailer Dan Murphy’s for $180 AUD (around $145 USD). Only 4,900 bottles were produced.

What’s interesting here is that this Scotch was crafted so it became “a whisky specifically made for the Australian palate.” To help in its creation Dan Murphy’s ran a competition last year in which the winners were sent to Scotland to meet with William Grant & Sons master blender Brian Kinsman. These winners, working alongside Kinsman, “carefully chose malts from the Grant family’s vaults and married both whiskies in hand-picked oak casks.” The resulting whisky is now what’s in bottle.

The name Cruinnich, by the way, was chosen in honor of that special crafting experience, “as the word in Scots Gaelic translates to an assembly or a gathering.” It was a gathering of minds which brought the whisky together, so it holds a fitting meaning.