(Left to right) Single Malt SM1572; Rye Malt R638; Double Smoked Single Malt SM2361. Photography: courtesy of Archie Rose Distilling Co.

WHEN ESQUIRE LAST caught up with Will Edwards, founder of the urban distillery pioneer Archie Rose Distilling Co., his spirits brand was celebrating a decade in the business. “We’re in a good place,” he said at the time. “We finally have sufficient mature stock to supply outside of Australia. And so we are now on the cusp of a phase of growth that is really in our hands.” The growth Edwards was talking about has taken shape in Archie Rose’s Single Cask Whisky series entering its second release.

Archie Rose is itself an anomaly in Australia’s young distillery history. For Edwards, the series represents the pinnacle of their whisky-making endeavours (the brand also serves up globally recognised gin and vodka) that speak to the local environment and home-grown ingredients. In effect, they’ve carved out a prominent space for themselves in the global whisky community to fly the flag of Australian dram.

The first batch was feted at their Archie Rose Bar & Cellar Door in Sydney’s Rosebery in June last year, where guests enjoyed the brand’s speciality of serving whisky in its unadulterated form. But the assemblage of whisky enthusiasts opened another opportunity: guests were given various samples to taste and selected their favourite to be included in the next drop. Now, the second drop has arrived with three limited releases of their Single Malt Whisky.

If you were one of the fortunate few to play a hand in this batch, the Rye Malt R638 would be that cask from last year’s tasting event. At a natural cask strength of 70.8 percent, R638 is the quintessential expression of Archie Rose’s award winning Rye Malt Whisky. On the aroma front, you’ll get a whiff of the sweet caramelised glace fruits, synonymously Scottish shortbread biscuit and nutty almond nougat. As it settles on the palate, it gives way to gingerbread, nutmeg and allspice. With only 73 bottles available, at $299.99 a pop, R638 is comparatively limited to the rest.

More on that baked beat, Single Malt SM1572 was created with an individual character unique to the rarest casks used. Aromatically, it stands out amongst the trio with freshly baked pretzels with butter and honey, while it gives way to chocolate praline, peanut brittle and rosewater on the palate. Poised to be a hit amongst collectors (there are only 140 bottle available; $319.99 each), fans will appreciate the maturation that took over five years in Australian fortified wine (aprea) cask and bottled at 50 percent strength.

Last of the trio, Double Smoked Single Malt SM2361, brings the old world Scottish peated malt with Archie Rose’s new world Australian stringybark wood-smoked malt. With only 145 bottles available at $299.99 each, the bottle is another powerful player in the line up at 50 per cent ABV, showcasing Aussie character with notes of outback vampire smoke, chocolate and pork cracking tempered by Australian fortified wine.

The second batch won’t be easy to get a hold of once the limited run sells out on the brand’s website or at their Bar & Cellar Door in Sydney; the batch drops on March 17. Indeed, Archie Rose fans who attended the tasting last year would surely want to snap up the series. The second batch is an excellent introduction to one of Australia’s premier spirit makers; for what Edwards told us he hopes to achieve in “recreating what we feel is an authentically Australian whisky”.

Archie Rose Distilling Co.’s second batch of their Single Cask Whisky series is available at archierose.com.au or at their Bar & Cellar Door in Rosebery, Sydney.

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