"RUBY TUESDAY" UNCHARTED WHISKY CO. GIRVAN 28 YEAR OLD SINGLE GRAIN SCOTCH WHISKY
A Side-By-Side Nobody Else Can Offer
The Clearest Lesson in What a Cask Finish Actually Does
The very first cask The Whiskey Lab ever bottled was Whispering Waters Girvan 27 Year, a full-maturation ex-bourbon single grain distilled in March 1997. This release is a Girvan distilled in May 1996, matured in ex-bourbon, then re-racked into a ruby port butt for its final years. Two sister distillates, born 10 months apart, aged nearly the same length of time. One finished in bourbon. One finished in port.
If you have ever wanted to actually taste what a cask finish does to a whisky, this is as close to a controlled experiment as whisky allows. Same distillery. Same era. Same base maturation. Different last act.
Girvan is a single grain distillery on the Ayrshire coast, built by William Grant & Sons in 1963 to produce clean, creamy column-still spirit for blending. That creaminess is what makes it so responsive to a cask like this. A heavier malt would fight the port. Girvan absorbs it, carries it, and still finishes with the soft vanilla core the distillery is known for.
Distilled May 10, 1996. Bottled March 2025 at cask strength, 54.1%. Single cask. 649 bottles. Natural colour. Non-chill filtered.
Whispering Waters
Girvan 27 Year · Ex-Bourbon
- Distilled March 27, 1997
- Bottled July 2024
- Full ex-bourbon maturation
- 52.6% ABV · 265 bottles
What the cask was built to do: brown butter, coconut oil, overripe banana, buttery finish. Girvan in its natural form.
Uncharted Whisky Co.
Girvan 28 Year · Ruby Port Finish
- Distilled May 10, 1996
- Bottled March 2025
- Ex-bourbon, re-racked into ruby port butt
- 54.1% ABV · 649 bottles
What the finish changes: red berries, stewed fruit, leathery chocolate, syrupy mouthfeel. Same spirit, rewritten.
Distillery profile, Girvan
- Founded in 1963 on the Ayrshire coast, built by William Grant & Sons to produce grain whisky for the Grant's blended range.
- Shares its site with Ailsa Bay, Grant's single malt distillery.
- Uses column stills to produce an exceptionally clean, creamy grain spirit, purpose-built to carry cask influence without interfering with it.
- Independent bottlings of aged Girvan are among the most coveted grain releases in Scotland, precisely because the distillate takes so well to long maturation and active wood.
Cask profile, 60 year old ruby port butt
A butt is a large cask, roughly 500 liters, coopered in this case from European oak staves close to 4cm thick. Modern cooperages rarely build them this way anymore. The expense and the weight of the wood have pushed most production toward lighter, faster-turning casks.
Before this butt ever held whisky, it spent more than 60 years in solera-style service holding ruby port. Ruby is the bright, fruit-forward style of port, and in a solera the cask is continuously topped up year after year. Six decades of that cycle leaves a cask saturated with red fruit, spice, and European oak character. It does not just flavor the whisky. It rewrites it.
| Specification | Details |
|---|---|
| Brand | Uncharted Whisky Co. |
| Release name | "Ruby Tuesday" |
| Whisky style | Single grain Scotch whisky |
| Region | Lowlands (Ayrshire Coast) |
| Distillery | Girvan |
| Age | 28 years |
| ABV | 54.1% (true cask strength) |
| Volume | 700 ml |
| Maturation | Ex-Bourbon, re-racked into Ruby Port Butt |
| Cask reference | UC047 |
| Finish cask wood | European oak, ~4cm staves |
| Cask history | Ruby Port Butt, 60+ years of solera service |
| Distillation date | May 10, 1996 |
| Bottling date | March 2025 |
| Outturn | 649 bottles |
| Non-chill filtered | Yes |
| Natural colour | 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.
