Do you have a favourite cask finish?

[Innes]

Many disitilleries have increased their range/choice of whisky by finishing their whisky in a different cask or casks. Just wondered if you have a prefered type of wood finish for your whisky and is there a specific brand/expression of any type of wood finish you think is particularly good.

At the moment i seem to have developed a taste for port wood finished whisky and cant get enough of Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban and Balvenie Portwood.

[Gregor]

I like sherry wood finishes and refill sherry maturation but 1st fill sherry cask matured whisky can sometimes be a biit too sherried for my tastes. There is a huge choice of sherry matured/finished whisky out there now but i would say Macallan and Glenfarclas produce some of the best IMO.

[Alexppp]

Good question. I'm also getting into port-finished whiskies, so at the moment I really like the Quinta Ruban. Also had a taste of the Cragganmore Distillers Edition at a friends' and it's excellent as well.

Other than that, I think I prefer sherry finishing rather than sherry maturation, which can be a bit full-on for me sometimes. In particular I like sherry-finished Islays, like Bowmore Enigma. But I do like the Macallan, having said that! Which category is the Balvenie Doublewood under? According to the bottle it's matured in two different types of wood, one of them sherry, but since it only spends a few months in sherry casks, isn't that 'finishing' rather than maturation?

[McKay]

I love the mix of smoke and sherry and by far my favourite would be Ardbeg Uigeadail which is a a marriage (rather than a finish) of Ardbeg from bourbon barrel and sherry butt. Another favourite (i have many) would be Lagavulin Distillers Edition which is double matured, first in a bourbon cask then finished in a sherry cask.

[DavidUK]

If you like Port finishes than the Glen Moray expression 15yo is also very good indeed and received 95.5 in the Whisky Bible.

With regard to full sherry maturation in my opinion Glendronach is even better than Macallan and Glenfarclas

[Calder]

you dont often see Rum finish whisky mentioned, i recently had the Glenfiddich 21 year old Caribbean Rum finish and i thought it was gorgeous

[Gregor]

My sherried choices:
For heavy sherry i would go for Aberlour a bunadh. I enjoy everything from Glenfarclas and what is good about the Glenfarclas even the older expressions in the range are priced to drink, i probably drink the Glenfarclas 15 most out of them all but the 21 and 30 are very good. I think the sherry finished whiskies are uncountable but the Balvenie Doublewood will always be a favourite with me, even better if you can get a hold of the travel retail bottle which is bottled at higher strength. Macallan 10, 12 and 18 sherry wood is always quality shame the 18 is priced so high or it would be a regular dram for me.

Port Wood:
I havent tasted a poor Port wood finished whisky yet and i always find port finished whisky very easy to drink. Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban are Balvenie 21 Port Wood are the 2 most popular port wood finished whiskies IMO with good reason. Cragganmore Distillers Edition is another port woood finied whisky worth a try IMO, way more interesting than the standard Cragganmore 12.

[Gregor]

[Alexppp]

I should really try Glendronach, everyone seems to be raving about it. As for the Balvenie Doublewood, I have a travel retail bottle at 43% ABV

[Big Mac]

i have to say sherried whisky is my favorite with Macallan and Glenfarclas being the 2 i drink most. I am lucky as there seems to be an abundance of sherry finished whisky now, in fact i dont think therte is a brand that doesnt have at least 1 sherried expression.

One i will mention is the Glenmorangie Lasanta sherry fininish which has had some poor ratings from the likes of Jim Murray in his whisky bible, i find this to be a decent whisky and all the bottles i have tried of this have been very good and just what i expected from a sherry finish Glenmo.

[DavidUK]

[Alexppp]