“It’s one of the most common questions I get asked in the distillery - “can you use a cask more than once?”. The answer is of course yes, but it’s not been a widely common practice in Australian whisky, mostly because a large portion of our distilleries are not old enough to have used a barrel even once! But this is changing. As distilleries are emptying barrels and bottling those whiskies, we are starting to see more and more second fill cask whiskies coming out. To which I say bravo.

Many years ago when I started my journey in the whisky world, I preferred rich, bold whiskies with loads of oak and sherry flavour. While there is still a place in my heart (and my booze shelf) for these styles, my palate has moved on over time to appreciate lighter, fruitier styles of whisky just as much.

When you fill a cask for the first time, there is a huge amount of tannin, lactones, aldehydes, all compounds that impart spice, flavour, intensity, astringency. A lot of those compounds will extract into the whisky spirit that was in that barrel, meaning the second time you fill the barrel, the timber will impart less flavour, and the spirit will be more present. Sweetness from the malt, congeners and esters providing a floral, fruity aroma and flavour.

It’s something I’ve come to love stylistically, and as such we are keeping all of our decanted barrels for re-filling so we can get more of this lighter style whisky in future. In the case of UR1, we filled casks that were previously used for Flinders Island Peated releases, a mix of bourbon and fortified wine. Those being lightly peated expressions, there is just a whiff of smoke remaining, but lovely light spice and sweetness influencing the spirit.

Honey, pear and white grapes on the nose, the palate carries a lovely golden syrup, toasted oats, ginger and cinnamon. Lingering spices and a whiff of peat smoke on the finish.”