Wolfburn Hand Crafted First Release

A resurrected ancient Highlander with the most metal name.

It was 1821, the year of James Monroe (the President, not the Ace of Spades character) and George IV, when William Smith founded a Wolfburn distillery on the harsh Highland shore by the Pentland Firth, surrounded by moors and peat wetlands. The Smith family ran the Spirit business for decades and before Wolfburn met its mysterious end in the 1870s, the distillery was the biggest in the Caithness county.

In 2013, the year of Pharrell Williams and quinoa, the sleeping Viking soul was revived in a brand-new distillery, built on the sacred stones of the ancient temple to Spirit. To make reinvention as smooth as possible, the consortium of investors called Shane Fraser of Glenfarclas fame, who focused the small-scale production to the confines of the distillery, which is the most northern in mainland Scotland. Wolfburn uses the same water source as its predecessor – the cold stream of Wolf Burn. The distillery’s emblem is a 400-year old depiction of a sea-wolf, an amphibian beast that both terrified tourists and brought good luck and fortune to those who saw it. (It was a creature of contradictions.)

Wolfburn First Release is a very young single malt Scotch Whisky that got its sophistication by hanging out with distinguished characters – namely American oak casks from Islay with a wild history of peated Whiskies. That way a simple Whisky with a rich heritage gets its luscious flavor that is neither harsh nor savage like other young Whiskies. Wolfburn First Release is like a teenager from a wealthy dynasty who gets a proper education.