Cask Story - The offical story from Finn

While often inconsistent and not always easy to manage, the fantastic flavours of wine cask whiskies have made them increasingly popular in recent years. But, for the Thomsons, wine and whisky have been romancing for decades.

As well as being whisky blenders, my grandfather’s company Peter Thomson Ltd was a wholesaler of wines from across the globe. A glimpse at an old price list from 1981 shows a range of wines, from traditional Bordeauxs to experimental imports from Yugoslavia and even Tunisia. Wine has been a big part of our whisky story, so when I get the chance to bottle a wine matured whisky I jump at it.
This Tomatin has had a full maturation in a French Red Wine cask. Eight years of ageing have produced incredible balance from a cask type that is notoriously difficult to work with.
There is a creaminess of texture and a warming spice that defy the young age of this whisky. Rounded and remarkably even, this whisky is a shining example of when wine casks pay off, and a personal tribute to my grandfather’s era in the industry.

Dramatic expansion at Tomatin distillery between 1956-74, when stills increased from two to 23, mirrored a boom period for the Scotch whisky industry. Demand for single malts was on the up thanks to a vibrant export market, though sadly Tomatin never ran at full capacity.

The whisky loch of the 1980s caught up with the group and its owner, Tomatin Distillers, went bust in 1985.

The site became the first in Scotland to be wholly-owned by a Japanese firm when it was saved the same year by the Tomatin Distillery Company, established by two of its bulk customers, Takara Shuzo and Okura & Co.

In 1997 Tomatin Distillery Co. acquired blending firm J&W Hardie, adding the historic Antiquary blend to its portfolio.

Okura sold part of its stake in Tomatin to Takara Shuzo the following year after being declared bankrupt, and the remainder to the Marubeni Corporation.

In 2013 the group launched a peated single malt variant from Tomatin distillery, Cù Bòcan, produced during the last week of every year.