Murray McDavid Croftengea Marsala Cask Finished Single Malt Whiskey 700ml

Murray McDavid was founded in 1994 by London wine merchants Mark Reynier and Simon Coughlin alongside Gordon Wright of Springbank Distillery, and the bottler quickly built its name on maturing whiskies in unusual and interesting cask types. The same team went on to reopen the shuttered Bruichladdich Distillery on Islay in 2000, bringing in whisky maker Jim McEwan, before Rémy Cointreau acquired both Bruichladdich and Murray McDavid in 2012. Murray McDavid was later sold to new owners and today operates from Coleburn Distillery in Speyside.

This release, part of the Cask Craft series, draws on Croftengea, a peated single malt distilled at Loch Lomond distillery in the Scottish Highlands. The gently peated spirit is finished in Marsala wine barriques sourced from Sicily, a fortified wine cask more commonly associated with cooking and dessert wines than whiskey maturation, adding a layer of sweet, nutty character to the smoke. The whiskey is bottled at 44.5% ABV, non-chill filtered and at natural color.

The nose brings salted caramel, caramelized pineapple, and toasted walnut. On the palate, honeyed cereal and peaches in syrup meet cinnamon-spiced nuts and a whiff of barbecue smoke. The finish is long, closing on cooked apple, treacle, and lingering sweet smoke.