Isle of Raasay Distillery: Caskshare X Isle of Raasay 30 Litre Project

Leading industry platform Caskshare is on a mission to democratise access to maturing single cask spirits. In collaboration with Isle of Raasay Distillery, the online whisky platform has offered a selection of 30L casks for reservation by the bottle. An ideal opportunity for whisky fans to get their hands on, the innovative product is not often seen in mainstream distillery production.

Exactly three years ago Isle of Raasay Distillery began filling custom built ex-Speyside Scotch whisky oak casks.

This was the brainchild of co-founder Alasdair Day, who is a firm believer in bringing innovation and novel approaches to the whisky sector. The 30 Litre Project deals with casks that have a much higher spirit-to-wood surface contact ratio means a much faster maturation process, cutting through the needs for longer maturation and making the craft producer able to release a well-developed spirit in a shorter time frame. Distilleries in hotter climates have already opened up the market to shorter (3-year) maturations, but the colder Scottish climates have traditionally not been favourable to this style of whisky in the larger cask sizes.

Alasdair worked with Speyside Cooperage to make bespoke small casks specially designed for this style of whisky. Each cask is completely unique and are made from the wood previously used to mature Speyside whisky in larger quantities. Alasdair Day, Isle of Raasay Distillery states: "It's a well-known fact that the size of a cask has a direct impact on the maturation of the spirit within it. When my Great Grandfather created his blended scotch whisky, the age of the single malt was a major component in the quality of the blend. Now on Raasay we have the option to fill smaller specially coopered ex Speyside oak casks that impart their specific flavour in different ways and in much shorter timescales. Single malt evolves with much more flavour development yet to come."

David Nicol, Founder of Caskshare commented: "The idea of using bespoke built casks is a great example of the innovation coming from Alasdair Day and the whole team at the Isle of Raasay Distillery. Scotch is an ever-evolving product and when we heard about these casks we were committed to bringing a selection of them to Caskshare.com for whisky fans to reserve by the bottle. We decided to bottle one at 46% for a wider audience, and the other at cask strength for a comparison at smaller quantities."

An additional range of 30L casks are set to launch on Caskshare imminently, initially available exclusively to The Caskshare Collective, Caskshare's membership program offering permanent discounts, early access to a selection of newly launched casks and bi-annual tasting packs of maturing or recently bottles exclusive single cask whisky.