This is a pre arrival offering with a firm cutoff date. Timing is an estimate and can shift due to carrier schedules, port congestion, customs, or warehouse receiving.
BALLINDALLOCH 2016, 10 YEAR OLD SINGLE CASK, 1ST FILL BOURBON BARREL
The Occasion
Three Samples, Three Casks, One Answer
I had been reading about Ballindalloch for years before I met their export manager. What I learned: the distillery opened in 2014 on the Macpherson-Grant family estate, took a decade to release its first whisky, and only reached the United States in 2025, California only. Then Chicago. Nobody east of Illinois had seen it.
They sent three samples from three casks. We poured them for every group we could, blind, and every single group picked this one. So this is the one that crossed the Atlantic, with The Whiskey Lab's name on the label beside theirs. Our first co-branded release with a distillery, and Ballindalloch's first bottle on the East Coast.
Ballindalloch is the only true single estate distillery in Scotland. The barley is grown on the estate, malted for the estate, distilled in the estate's stills, matured in the estate's warehouses, and the draff goes back to feed the estate's Aberdeen Angus. Nothing is bought in. Nothing leaves until it is whisky.
This is the oldest single cask they have sent to America and the only one matured entirely in first fill bourbon at cask strength. Distilled July 7, 2016, bottled September 1, 2026 from barrel No. 367 at 62.0%, natural colour, non-chill filtered. The other two American casks are sherry. This one shows you the spirit with nothing in the way.
Distillery profile, Ballindalloch
- Built in a 1820s steading on the Ballindalloch estate, beside the River Avon where it meets the Spey. The castle has been in the same family since 1546.
- Opened in 2014, first whisky released a decade later. Everything is done by hand: wooden washbacks, long fermentation, worm tub condensers, one small team.
- Tiny output, roughly 100,000 litres a year. Single casks are the only way most people will ever taste it.
- The Whiskey Lab visits the distillery on our March 2027 Scotland trip. This bottle is the preview.
Cask profile, 1st fill bourbon barrel
A first fill American oak barrel gives the spirit everything the bourbon left behind: vanilla, honey, toasted coconut and soft caramel, without the tannic weight of sherry wood.
Ten years at this strength with this much wood contact is a cask that stayed lively. Ballindalloch's long fermentation and worm tubs build a fruity, waxy, slightly meaty spirit, and the bourbon barrel lets all of it through.
| Specification | Details |
|---|---|
| Brand | Ballindalloch Distillery, co-branded with The Whiskey Lab |
| Whisky style | Speyside single malt Scotch whisky, single cask |
| Region | Speyside (Banffshire) |
| Distillery | Ballindalloch, est. 1824 estate, distillery opened 2014 |
| Age | 10 years |
| Distilled | July 7, 2016 |
| Bottled | September 1, 2026, at the distillery |
| Cask | 1st fill bourbon barrel No. 367, full maturation |
| ABV | 62.0% (124 proof), cask strength |
| Volume | 700 ml |
| Market | Exclusively for the USA, cask selected by The Whiskey Lab |
| Natural colour | Yes |
| Non-chill filtered | Yes |
The Whiskey Lab's Quality Commitments
- Single Cask: Ensuring a unique profile for each release.
- True Cask Strength: Delivered with the full intensity of flavor.
- Natural Colour & Non-Chill Filtered: Preserving the authentic character and purity of the whisky.
