Found North Single Barrel Ex-PX Sherry

Season 1, Barrel #7
Ex-Pedro Ximénez Spanish Oak Sherry Butt

Found North Season 1, Barrel #7 was further matured for a year in a Pedro Ximénez Spanish Oak Sherry Butt. It drinks like raspberry jam lathered thick on buttered rye toast.

Picking when to bottle a single barrel is one of the most enjoyable and challenging aspects of making whisky. Whisky does not always age in a linear manner. The flavors that begin to emerge don’t simply intensify and concentrate. They ripple and roll like waves in the ocean. One moment they are there. The next they are gone. It’s like a walk through a field of flowers. The wind carries a beautiful note on its currents and by the time you identify it, the note is in the wind and in the past.

There is no turning back. If you loved a note in month 7 that vanishes in month 8, you can’t recover and bottle what you had. The only choice is between “now” and “wait and see.” So when do you bottle an undulating palate and an ephemeral nose? When do you decide the moment is now?

We search for a moment that presents specific identifiable characteristics. A single barrel is inherently singular so we wait for a unique combination of nose, landing, palate and finish that captivates our imagination and expands our palate. When that moment arrives, we bottle it.

Flavor Notes

Barrel 007 captures three perfectly balanced points on a triangle: raspberry jam, rye bread and sweet oak. It is a triad in harmony.

The berry jam springs out of the bottle before the liquid even hits the glass. It actually smells sticky, a triumvirate of fig, raspberry and blackberry preserves. A deep inhale reveals the rich undercurrents of rye bread, the sweet, crispy fluff encrusted in the center of a loaf and the leftover cinnamon from the knife used to spread the jam. Underneath it all lies the foundation of honeyed phenolic wood sugars present in gently toasted oak.

The landing is creamy, floral and fresh. A nose that promises fig lands with a surprising amount of Newton – a buttered cookie with grip.

The mid palate bestows a lovely texture, presenting spearmint freshness on the roof of the palate, buttercream viscosity on the side palate and crackling spice on the tongue. The flavor matches the nose with bright rich golden raisins drizzled in a rosewater raspberry puree. If you taste closely you’ll catch a gentle, balancing citrus note reminiscent of sumo oranges.

The finish crescendos with baking spices, black pepper and mahogany wood chips. Only in the resonant lingering spice and smoldering Spanish oak finish does the cask strength nature (58.9% ABV) of this whisky reveal itself. The spicy warmth hangs for minutes reminding you that this is indeed a full proof rye.

About Our Single Barrels

Our single barrel program captures the precision inherent in blending Canadian whisky and the magic of selecting and bottling single barrels. We use well-aged whiskies to create an initial blend. We then re-cask that blend into a variety of different barrels, using different oak types and different char levels to create varying flavor profiles and a distinct style for each single barrel.

Our program therefore allows us to be particular about the starting point of our single barrels, while also creating distinctiveness and individuality from barrel to barrel.

What is a Season?

Each blend we create that transforms into a batch of single barrels constitutes a “Season.” Every subsequent round of single barrels we release will start with a new and different blend that can be identified by which “Season” is denoted on the label.

Season 1

Season 1 started as a blend of 3 whiskies at the following ratios:

• 50% 12 year old rye
• 20% 19 year old rye
  
• 30% 21 year old corn

We blended and married Season 1 in December, 2021 and re-casked it in January, 2022 into 18 barrels. We used three different whiskies to create a blend optimized for re-casking. We maximized the rye spice and bright fruits, while layering in a viscous foundation.

The younger rye provided a primed canvas with zesty citrus, verdant straw and herbaceous spice. We mixed in the older rye aged in Speyside scotch casks, which developed richer fruit notes of green apple, sugar-coated strawberries and cantaloupe. Lastly, we mixed in an old corn component that saw 13 years of ex-bourbon and a further 8+ years of new American oak. This provided an oily depth to the palate and had a rounding effect on the lively younger rye.

The resulting blend was bright, floral and hefty with lots of room for wood spice, wood sugars and tannin, a perfect starting point for further maturation.