DramMaster Daily Whisky News — 25 August 2026

By Murray

The Dalmore Distillery Select Returns with 14-Year-Old Marsala Finish

The Dalmore has released the 2026 edition of its Distillery Select Series: a 14-year-old Highland single malt finished for one year and nine months in Semisecco Marsala casks. Priced at £350 with 1,110 bottles available, it goes on general release on 31 August. The whisky was initially matured in American white oak ex-bourbon barrels before the Sicilian fortified wine casks were applied. Semisecco Marsala is a medium-sweet style, and The Dalmore says the casks contribute candied citrus, honeyed fruit, roasted nuts, and gentle spice. Bottled at 53.7% ABV, non-chill filtered and natural colour. The nose offers floral overtones, sweet clementine, stoned fruits, and grape must. The palate gives candied orange peel, sweet pear, toffee, brioche, walnuts, clove, and cinnamon. The Distillery Select Series debuted in 2024 to showcase small parcels from The Dalmore's dunnage warehouses. Following the reopening of The Dalmore's Highland home in Alness earlier this year, visitors can now buy the Series in person from the distillery boutique.

Murray's take: Marsala cask finishes are rare in Scotch — sherry, port, and wine casks dominate, but Sicilian fortified wine sits outside the usual playbook. At £350 for 1,110 bottles, this is a collector piece rather than a daily pour, but the cask specification is genuinely interesting. A 21-month finish in Semisecco casks on 14-year-old spirit gives the liquid time to absorb the cask character without losing the Dalmore house style. The Distillery Select Series is building a track record of unusual cask experiments — that's exactly what a limited-edition series should do.

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Sazerac Acquires Garrard County Distillery in Kentucky

Sazerac has acquired the Garrard County Distilling facility in Lancaster, Kentucky, adding to a portfolio that already includes Buffalo Trace, Barton 1792, and The Glenmore. The facility opened in 2024 on approximately 210 acres, with two column stills and two 20,000-square-foot barrel warehouses. Sazerac announced the deal on 21 August and will use the site's existing infrastructure to support broader production. "Even with all the investments we have made to expand, we need more supply to keep up with demand, and the addition of the Lancaster facility gives us valuable distilling capabilities to support that growth," said Jake Wenz, president and CEO of Sazerac. Nearly 3,000 team members are part of Sazerac's Kentucky operations. The acquisition follows a decade of heavy investment: a US$1.2 billion, 10-year expansion of Buffalo Trace completed in January 2025, roughly US$50 million at Barton 1792, and approximately US$40 million at The Glenmore since 2020.

Murray's take: Sazerac buying a distillery it doesn't need to build is a supply-chain play, not a craft statement. The company has spent $1.2 billion expanding Buffalo Trace and still can't keep up with demand — that tells you everything about the scale of the bourbon boom and the lag time between investment and output. A two-year-old facility with column stills and 40,000 square feet of warehousing is a turnkey production asset. Expect Sazerac to fill those warehouses fast.

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Bodmin Jail Gets Green Light for English Whisky Distillery

Cornwall Council has approved plans for The Bodmin Jail Distillery, part of an £80 million (US$109.2m) investment to restore the former prison, which closed in 1927. Swiss private equity group Spirit Capital — owner of Père Magloire Calvados and two Armagnac brands through its French arm Spirit France Diffusion — will build a purpose-built grain-to-glass distillery on the site, creating 15 permanent jobs. The development will restore the Grade II-listed Governor's House and Chaplaincy and include a 1,000-square-metre distillery, two tasting rooms, a speakeasy cocktail bar, and a gift shop. The focus will be Cornish whisky made from locally grown grain, distilled and matured on site, alongside gin and vodka. The distillery is expected to open in 2027, with gin and vodka released shortly after and whisky once it has matured. Mark Gorman, director of acquisitions and development at Spirit Capital, said: "Planning permission is the point at which this project really starts to become tangible." Bodmin Jail reopened as a tourist attraction in 2020 with a museum and hotel. McConnell's in Belfast set a precedent in 2024, converting a Victorian prison into an Irish whiskey distillery.

Murray's take: A Calvados company building an English whisky distillery inside a former prison is either a stroke of provenance genius or a branding exercise with spirit attached. Spirit Capital knows how to age and sell premium spirits — Calvados and Armagnac require the same patience as whisky. The grain-to-glass, locally sourced approach mirrors what England's small distilleries have been doing for a decade. The whisky won't appear until at least 2030, but the visitor experience opens in 2027. That's the revenue model: sell the story before the spirit is ready.

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US-Canada Trade Talks Collapse: 50% Tariffs Hit American Whiskey

Negotiations between the US and Canada collapsed on 21 August. The result: 50% tariffs on Canadian spirits entering the US, and a trade rift that has kept American whiskey off Canadian provincial shelves for 18 months. Canadian spirits are the latest products added to the US tariffs list, countering a boycott of American spirits running in some Canadian provinces since March 2025. US spirits exports to Canada fell from roughly $203 million to $60 million — a 70% decrease — since the provincial restrictions took effect. American whiskey represents over $1 billion in exports for the US economy, and grew 2.5% everywhere else except Canada during the same period. Michael Bilello, CEO of the American Whiskey Association, told Bloomberg: "For American whiskey producers, this remains unfinished business. For a year and a half now, American whiskey has been shut out from most of the provinces in Canada." Chris Swonger, CEO of the Distilled Spirits Council of the US, blamed the Canadian provincial sales bans for the US tariff response. Only Alberta and Saskatchewan have lifted their bans on American spirits. No further negotiations are currently scheduled.

Murray's take: A 70% drop in exports is not a soft metric — it's a market disappearing. The provincial boycott started as a political gesture and calcified into structural market loss. Even if the tariffs are resolved tomorrow, American whiskey has been off Canadian shelves for 18 months. Consumers have found alternatives. The "out of sight, out of mind" problem Bilello describes is a branding issue, not just a trade issue. The longer this drags on, the harder the recovery becomes — and both governments know it. The whisky world watches trade disputes closely because spirits are a tariff magnet. This one is shaping up to be the template for how not to resolve one.

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New Riff Re-releases Sherry Finish Malted Rye Whiskey

New Riff Distilling has announced the re-release of its Sherry Finish Malted Rye, available from 28 August. The 2026 edition is a six-year-old Kentucky Straight Malted Rye Whiskey bottled at 58.7% ABV (barrel proof). Initially matured in New Riff's own American oak barrels, the whiskey was transferred to oloroso and Pedro Ximénez sherry casks for additional maturation. The expression won a double gold medal and was a "Best in Class" finalist in the Special-Barrel Finished Whiskey category at the 2025 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Master Distiller Brian Sprance said: "We're not known for barrel finishing, which is exactly why we're intentional about when and how we do it. Bottling it at barrel proof gives the whiskey every opportunity to show its full flavour and character." First introduced in 2022, the release builds on New Riff's exploration of malted rye as a grain, a category where the distillery has built a distinctive position in American craft whiskey.

Murray's take: Malted rye is a different animal from standard rye whiskey — the malting process changes the flavour profile, adding depth and sweetness that unmalted rye doesn't carry. Finishing it in oloroso and PX casks layers dried fruit and sherry sweetness onto an already complex base. A double gold at SFWSC validates the approach. New Riff bottling at barrel proof without filtration is the right call — sherry-finished whiskey loses character when chill-filtered. The fact that they release this annually means they're building inventory discipline, not just chasing a one-off.

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