Coronation Commemoratives Whiskies Top Week’s New Releases

Saturday’s coronation of King Charles III has generated a wide-ranging number of commemorative whiskies. 

The royal family’s Balmoral Castle & Estate has produced a special bottling in collaboration with Diageo’s nearby Royal Lochnagar distillery. Five casks of Royal Lochnagar malt were blended together for the special bottling, which went on sale through the estate’s online shop last week. 900 of the 1,000 bottles sold out “almost immediately” at £360 ($425 USD) with the remaining 100 bottles to go on sale Saturday as part of the coronation celebration at the estate. 

The first two bottles were presented to King Charles and Prince William, known in Scotland as the Duke of Rothesay. 

London’s Bomber Distillery released a special coronation expression featuring its first-ever blend of two different cask types. The distillery blended ex-Bourbon cask matured Bimber single malt with its whisky matured in red wine casks from Bordeaux. 

It’s available through the distillery’s web site for £85 ($108) per bottle. 

Bladnoch Distillery in the Scottish Lowlands has released “The King’s Cask,” a single cask bottling from a Tokaji wine cask that celebrates the King’s visit in 2019 to reopen the restored distillery. “The King’s Cask” is available through the Bladnoch web site and at whisky specialist shops in the UK for £180 ($228) per bottle. 

The King’s long association with Laphroaig Distillery inspired releases from Duncan Taylor and Co. and Hunter Laing & Co.  Duncan Taylor will be releasing a trilogy of 18, 23, and 26-year-old Laphroaigs through The Spirits Embassy website with a price tag of £3,900 ($4,935) for the three-bottle set. Hunter Laing has bottled a 32-year-old Laphroaig single cask filled in 1990 with a price tag of £1,100 ($1,392) per bottle.

Other new releases of note…

Metallica’s music could easily be described as “cask strength,” and now there’s a cask-strength edition of the band’s Blackened American Whiskey available in the US and Canada. Master distiller Rob Dietrich selected a special playlist of Metallica songs to blast the casks with using the proprietary “Black Noise” sonic enhancement process developed by the late Dave Pickerell and engineers at Meyer Sound. 

Blackened Cask Strength is available at a recommended retail price of $69.99 a bottle. 

On the country music scene, Eric Church is one of the partners in the new Whiskey JYPSI brand. 

They teamed up with Michigan-based master distiller and blender Ari Sussman to create the whisky by sourcing individual components from various distilleries, then blending them together to create the final product. 

Legacy Batch 1 is available through ReserveBar.com and select Tennessee retailers for $199.99 a bottle. 

Actors Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder told us during an interview last year that they were working on a rye whisky, and now, the duo behind Brother’s Bond Bourbon has released their first rye. 

Brother’s Bond American Blended Rye is made up of four different mashbills blended together. There’s no word on pricing. 

San Francisco’s Old Potrero has released three new rye whiskies: a 100% straight rye along with straight ryes finished in Sherry and Port wine casks. The whiskies will carry a recommended retail price of $89.99 each and will be available through retailers in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Georgia, Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Minnesota as well as online through ReserveBar.com. 

Finally, New Mexico’s Santa Fe Spirits is known for its mesquite-smoked Colkegan single malts, but founder Colin Keegan laid down a batch of unsmoked malt four years ago. The whisky was matured in a combination of new American Oak and ex-Bourbon barrels, and s now available through the distillery’s website for $69.99 a bottle.