DramMaster Daily Whisky News — 11 July 2026

Glenturret Releases 21-Year-Old Sauternes-Finished Single Malt — Deux Terrain, 500 Bottles at £750

The Glenturret Distillery has launched Deux Terrain, a 21-year-old single malt pairing Highland character with Bordeaux vineyards. The name means "Two Lands."

The whisky was initially matured in Sherry-seasoned oak casks before being finished in casks that previously held Sauternes wine from Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey, a Bordeaux estate founded in 1618. Both properties sit under the same Lalique guardianship.

Created by Whisky Maker Bob Dalgarno, Deux Terrain is bottled at 42.8% ABV with notes of pineapple, caramelised apple, gentle spice, vanilla, seasoned oak, ginger, sweet cinnamon, and ripening citrus.

Limited to 500 bottles, Deux Terrain is available from The Glenturret website at £750.

Murray's take: Lalique owns both properties, so this is a house collaboration, not a random cask buy. Sherry for structure, Sauternes for brightness — both are sweet cask influences, which means the risk is a dessert bomb with no definition. 42.8% ABV is low for 21 years, suggesting generous dilution or significant evaporation. £750 for 500 bottles is premium, but £13 a dram at the distillery bar settles the argument cheaply.

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Islay Rum Distillery Launches First Single Cask — Sherry Wood, 390 Bottles at £53

The Islay Rum Distillery has unveiled its inaugural single cask expression — an Oloroso Sherry-aged rum distilled during its earliest production runs on 18 July 2022.

The distillery, established in 2017 by father-and-son duo Brian and Andrew Crook — owners of The Vintage Malt Whisky Company — opened in 2021 in Port Ellen's restored 1959 Art Deco Old Lemonade Factory. It claims to be Islay's first dedicated rum distillery.

Head distiller Ben Inglis, an Islay native and co-founder, uses Caribbean distillation techniques with a copper pot and twin-retort still for a triple-distillation effect in a single run.

The Sherry Wood expression is bottled at 50% ABV, limited to 390 bottles, and retails at £53 (US$71). Tasting notes describe dried fruits, raisins, figs, Sherried spice, toasted oak, and coastal salinity, with caramel, butterscotch, green banana, and tropical fruits on the palate.

Inglis said: "The spirit had real potential from early on, and this Oloroso Sherry cask has done exactly what we hoped — richness and depth, while letting the rum's character come through."

The core range includes Geal white rum, Barrel Aged (rested in ex-peated Islay whisky casks), and Peat Spiced.

Murray's take: A whisky bottling company starting a rum distillery on Islay is a smart bet — the Crooks know maturation and the independent spirits market. Oloroso Sherry works for rum as it does for whisky, and 390 bottles at £53 with 50% ABV is honest pricing. Three years from still to bottle is fast, but rum interacts more aggressively with wood at higher strength. The question is whether Islay's whisky crowd will cross the aisle for rum from the same island.

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Spirit of Yorkshire Marks a Decade with First 10-Year-Old Single Cask — 200 Bottles, Masterclass Exclusive

Spirit of Yorkshire Distillery has announced Filey Bay 10 Year Old Single Cask — Decade of Distilling, its first age-stated release and a celebration of ten years in business.

The Yorkshire single malt was distilled and laid down to mature in an undisclosed cask in the summer of 2016. It is limited to 200 bottles. Full bottling details, including ABV, will follow.

The release is available exclusively as part of a masterclass during the distillery's 10th Birthday Open Weekend on 1 and 2 August, with tickets at £250 per session (limited to 50 people) and general admission from £20.

David Thompson, co-founder of Spirit of Yorkshire, said: "Be among the first to sample and take home our Decade of Distilling Single Cask — the first 10-year-old age-stated Yorkshire whisky. It demonstrates how our distillery style has matured over the past decade."

Spirit of Yorkshire is a single-estate distillery in Hunmanby, North Yorkshire, and one of only a handful worldwide to use 100% homegrown barley. In 2025, it was named one of the world's top 50 spirits producers by the IWSC.

Murray's take: First 10-year-old from Yorkshire is a milestone — English whisky is still young enough that age statements prove the category is maturing, literally. 200 bottles only at a masterclass is a celebration bottle, not a retail release, and £250 for the session plus a bottle is fair. The 100% homegrown barley approach is genuinely different — that's field-to-bottle, not just farm-to-bottle. The question for English whisky is whether distilleries can build enough stock to move from occasional age-stated releases to a core range. Spirit of Yorkshire is getting there.

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ASA Rules Against Whisky Cask Investment Firm Capgroup Int — Second Time Under Third Name

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority has ruled against Capgroup Int for misleading advertising — the second time the company has faced ASA enforcement, now under its third name.

Capgroup Int, formerly London Cask Company and then Caskcap Ltd, operates under the same Companies House registration throughout. The London-based business now focuses on "Irish whiskey casks and graded gold coins."

The ASA first flagged the company in 2023 as London Cask Company, banning a 2022 Guardian ad for misleading financial returns claims. The company became Caskcap Ltd in 2024, then Capgroup Int Ltd in May 2025. The ASA again found misleading claims in April 2026.

Capgroup's homepage claimed 27,023 "excellent" TrustPilot reviews. The ASA found the company had no such rating — TrustPilot shows no reviews under Capgroup and only 85 under the old name, Caskcap, with a three-and-a-half-star rating. The company's website also displayed logos of Sky News, The Times, and other media alongside an "as seen on" claim. Capgroup stated these reflected paid ad placements, not editorial endorsements. The ASA upheld the challenge.

The website claimed "rare whiskey has delivered average returns of 8 to 15 per cent per year." The ASA found the site failed to disclose that investments are variable, that past performance doesn't guarantee future returns, or that the company operates in an unregulated category. Of five issues, one was resolved informally and four upheld.

Murray's take: Three names, one Companies House number, two ASA rulings — this company renames itself each time the regulator catches up, then repeats the same claims. The 27,023 "excellent" TrustPilot reviews that didn't exist is not a grey area; it's a fabricated number. The 8 to 15 per cent returns claim draws retail investors who don't understand that whisky casks are unregulated, illiquid, and carry no guaranteed exit. The ASA can ban ads and name companies, but it cannot shut them down. That's the gap.

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Mark Reynier's Renegade Rum Distillery in Grenada Goes Up for Sale

Renegade Rum Distillery, the Grenada-based operation founded by whisky entrepreneur Mark Reynier, is up for sale. EY-Parthenon Caribbean is leading the process.

Reynier is best known for reviving Islay's Bruichladdich Distillery and founding Waterford Distillery in Ireland. He launched Renegade to apply his terroir-driven philosophy to rum — creating a spirit rooted in Grenada's soil, local farms, and microclimates.

The distillery began production in 2022. Sugarcane is harvested from 12 neighbouring farms and milled within hours. Each bottle carries a "cane code" allowing drinkers to trace the rum back to the specific farm, plot, and harvest date.

The distillation process is designed for sustainability: agricultural residue becomes energy, and byproducts return to the soil. The production team is entirely local and all-female.

Maria Daniel, managing partner at EY-Parthenon Caribbean, said: "'Farm to bottle' isn't a marketing line; it's a structural model. Our cane is locally sourced and processed on site, byproducts returned to the soil, an all-female, entirely neighbourhood production team."

The buyer will acquire a finished, producing facility. According to OhBev, the global rum category could see 5.5% CAGR between 2024 and 2033, growing from US$17.3 billion to US$28 billion.

Murray's take: Mark Reynier's pattern is consistent: buy or revive a distillery, apply a terroir-driven philosophy, build a provenance narrative, and move on. Bruichladdich proved the concept; Waterford was the Irish version; Renegade is the rum translation. The cane code system — tracing each bottle to a specific farm and harvest — is borrowed directly from Waterford's single-farm DNA model. Whether rum drinkers care about that level of provenance the way whisky geeks do is an open question. A buyer gets a working distillery with a concept and a story, but not years of matured stock. Reynier's exit will be read as either smart timing or an admission that terroir-driven rum is harder to sell than terroir-driven whisky. Probably both.

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