How many bottles from a sherry butt bottled at cask strenght

by **Ann-Helen** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 7:37 am

This subject has been on my mind on and of ,and yesterday I was reminded of it .
As I was reading on the tube of the Convalmore it reveeled that it had been on sherry butt and there were a total of 642 bottles bottled at the strenght of 61,4% . This is a cadenhead autentic collection bottle.
How can it be so many bottles I thought there would be around 300 or so bottles!?

by **Bullie** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 8:46 am

Are you sure it's a Single Cask? There are bottlings with several casks even though they are Cask Strenght. Also, the sherry butt contains up to 600 liters (most of them is around 500 liters though).

You don't specify the age of the whisky, so it's hard to estimate how much the angels got.

Fx, if it's a butt containing 590 liters and it's a 10yo -2% a year you would have app. 700 bottles from that butt.

by **Ann-Helen** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 8:55 am

It`s 26 yo I`m thinking it has to be two butts in this.

by **Bullie** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 8:57 am

Most likely yes...

by **kallaskander** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 10:01 am

Hi there,

not neccessarily. Cadenhead is reliable in what they print on their labels. A sherry butt filled 26 years ago could have held up to 700 litres initially. Depending on the place in the warehouse it could well have above 60% alcohol after all theese years especially as malt was barreled at higher strength sometimes at that time.
So I would say just trust what Cadenhead tells you about that bottling. It is genuine.

Greetings
kallaskander

by **JUERG GLUTZ-KURMANN** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 2:36 pm

Hi everybody,

....and I remember my Convalmore from Cadenhead which indeed is also some kind of strange. It's an Authentic Collection bottling, aged 20 years (bottled way back in 1998). The label says "Individual Cask" and that it matured in an oak cask (well, whatever else could it be. I guess, if oak cask is on the label it is matured in bourbon wood, or am I wrong?) Strange it is because when the whisky left the cask after 20 years it has still a powerful 65,2 % ABV, which I think is extremely strong. How can that be, given the fact that whisky is distilled with about 63,5 %.

Slàinte!
Juerg

by **Wave** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 3:25 pm

Here's how I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong), many distilleries add water to the spirit to cut it down to 62.5% before casking for consistancy to blenders, while other distilleries don't wish to store water in their warehouses. Kinda the same reason why I bring back mainly cask strengths from Scotland, I don't want to ship water back to the States!

Cheers!

by **Spirit of Islay** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 6:30 pm

might be a Tight Butt.... :shock:

by **Deactivated Member** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 3:14 am

The cheek of them!

Spirit off the still is around 68% or so, once the whole middle cut is collected. As noted, the standard practice these days is to cut to 63.5% for cask filling. I've speculated that this is to provide an industry standard so that the excise on casks swapped around for blending will be easier to figure, but that's really a guess out of the blue. I've read comments to the effect that some feel the spirit matures better at that strength. Regardless, that hasn't always been the practice, and Diageo, for one, casked at full strength for some time, ostensibly (as noted) to make best use of warehouse space. Thus a number of older Caol Ila, Port Ellen, and Talisker cs bottles I've had were at 60% or more, including a Talisker 20 at 62.0%. I don't know how widespread this practice was, but maybe Convalmore did the same.

Bruichladdich now fill at full strength. The fact that they have no blending contracts may lend credence to my theory. Or not. But the higher filling strength may explain why Port Ellen, for example, has matured so well into its twenties. The lower strength may produce better results at ten to twelve years. Again, I'm only speculating.