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.
North Star Spirits Clynelish 11 Year Old, Refill Hogsheads
Clynelish, distilled in January 2015, matured eleven years in two refill hogsheads vatted together, and bottled in July 2026 by North Star Spirits at 53.6% cask strength, un-chillfiltered, natural colour. One of 622 bottles from Cask Series 028.
Clynelish is the waxy one, and refill bourbon wood is the way to taste it. Nothing in these two hogsheads was loud enough to cover the distillery's signature: that oily, candle-wax texture, the orchard and stone fruit, the coastal salt from Brora on the Sutherland shore. North Star's notes land exactly there, spicy peach jam on a warm croissant, honeydew melon, caramelised lemon. If you have only had Clynelish in a blend, this is the version the blenders fight over.
About North Star Spirits
North Star Spirits is Iain Croucher's independent bottler in Dumbarton, founded in 2016 and celebrating ten years in 2026. The friendly folks at North Star, as the label puts it, have built one of the most trusted names in the independent trade on a simple method: buy casks on taste, bottle them at cask strength, never colour, never chill filter, and write tasting notes that sound like a human being wrote them.
Cask Series 028 is the anniversary batch. North Star also bottles The Whiskey Lab's own Whispering Waters releases, which is how a Dumbarton warehouse ended up on the side of a Reston, Virginia label.
Distillery profile, Clynelish
- The current distillery opened in 1967 beside the original 1819 Clynelish, which was renamed Brora and ran until 1983. Both sit above the North Sea at Brora, Sutherland, on the east coast of the Highlands.
- Owned by Diageo, Clynelish is the heart of Johnnie Walker Gold Label and the most prized malt in that blending inventory. Official single malts are rare; the 14 year old is the only regular one.
- The signature is wax: a distinct candle-wax, oily texture that comes from the way the feints receivers are run, and nobody else quite replicates it.
- Independent casks at full strength are the best way to taste the waxy fruit without dilution.
Cask profile, two refill hogsheads
A hogshead is a rebuilt bourbon barrel, around 250 litres, and a refill one has already lent its heaviest vanilla to an earlier whisky. Two of them, filled the same month, were vatted together for this bottling.
Refill wood is the right call for Clynelish. It gives structure and a little honey without covering the wax, the peach, the melon, the sea air. Eleven years was enough to round the edges and not a day more.
Distilled January 2015, bottled July 2026 at 53.6%, un-chillfiltered, natural colour. 622 bottles worldwide, 72 for The Whiskey Lab.
| Specification | Details |
|---|---|
| Brand | North Star Spirits |
| Series | Cask Series 028 |
| Style | Single malt Scotch whisky, two casks vatted |
| Region | Highland |
| Distillery | Clynelish, Brora, Sutherland |
| Age | 11 years |
| ABV | 53.6% (cask strength) |
| Volume | 700ml |
| Cask | Two refill hogsheads, full maturation |
| Distilled | January 2015 |
| Bottled | July 2026 |
| Outturn | 622 bottles |
| Natural colour | Yes |
| Non-chill filtered | Yes |
| Availability | Pre-order, October Import, arrives November 4, 2026 |
The Whiskey Lab's Quality Commitments
- Single Cask & Small Batch: Ensuring a unique profile for each release.
- Natural Colour & Non-Chill Filtered: Preserving the authentic character and purity of the whisky.
- Honest Storytelling: Every cask profile written by people who actually handled the liquid.
