“Second fill. It’s a topic often discussed in the whisky world - can one use a cask more than once? Distillers have strong opinions about it. Personally, I think that as always it depends on the cask. This release was matured in two 20l casks, both of Furneaux unpeated spirit previously. One was ex-Apera, the other ex-Tawny. Generally, 20l casks lend themselves to second fill more than larger format. With a 20l cask, I prefer not to leave the spirit in the cask for more than 2.5 years. After that, I find often that the oak starts to have a diminishing influence on the balance of the whisky. It becomes very tannic, dense and astringent. The very fact that I decant a cask after only 2.5 years means there is still a viable level of flavour in that cask.

Now that being said, the oak influence, and indeed the original fill matter (bourbon, port etc) will be far lighter than the first maturation, but that is where most distillers will agree - the spirit can shine through as the predominant flavour. New make single malt spirit is so delicious; by design it’s fatty, oily, sweet and malty. Often it can be overshadowed by a rich sherry cask or a big sweet bourbon cask, but in a refill cask, the nuances of that spirit can shine.

This spirit batch was the first of our distillations on Flinders Island in our own stills. It was a Flinders Peated run also, which meant the spirit had been smoked with coastal maritime Tasmanian peat. It gave us the delicious and celebrated FPB1, our first Island distilled release, and the spirit is incredible. Having the opportunity to taste it in a more bare-bones format is a great joy.
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