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| Transatlanticism (2024)Today, we’re talking about something pretty unique. Special and different. A Scotch Whisky. If you remember the last scotch this program did, congrats – you’ve been here a while. It’s been 3 years since I set out to select a cask from Scotland. It’s been 2 since that pick, our inaugural Laphroaig single cask, went on sale. Why such a delay? It’s not lost on me that this is a bourbon group. When I stray from bourbon, rye, american whiskey, etc I always want to make sure that deviation stands for something. It’s introducing a new spirit, a new producer, something built to widen horizons, or sometimes it’s something so unique and incredible that I couldn’t say no, bought it on the spot, and I told myself I’d figure out how to sell it later. Today, we’re talking about a new Scotch selection. This release is a custom blend, built specially by myself, James Saxon from Compass Box, and my good friend and colleague Will Schragis. Blending is a foundational element behind some of my favorite Scotch Whiskeys, so I knew that I wanted to do a blend to follow up our Laphroaig Single Cask before I headed back into a single cask from a Scotch producer again in 2026. Why Compass Box? There’s a number of reasons. Firstly, James Saxon took over from John Glaser in recent years, and I quite like him. Secondly, I think there is no greater tapestry to show off the incredible potential of blending than Scotch whisky. Third, because we were offered an exclusive opportunity that I couldn’t turn down. Compass Box often times puts together various blends here or there and lets a retailer see if one is of interest. That’s nothing new. What they don’t do is open their doors to two fellas from the US to stop in and cause a little chaos. And there are few people who I love causing chaos with than a man named Will Schragis. If you’ve ever sipped Seagrass, you can thank Will. He’s worked all over in the past decade, but his final gig before setting off on his own was a many-year tenure at Barrell Craft Spirits. It’s where we met and it’s where he worked on whiskeys like Seagrass and Grey Label Seagrass that made me go “wow”. Over the years we became close friends and I always appreciated his willingness to call me at any hour of the day, out of the blue, and say something like “hold up, this is nuts, but what if we did X”. And he did that for years. And then I started to call him back, with similarly crackpot ideas. Some stuck, many didn’t, between all of our calls. And, that’s what collaboration is all about. But over years we built a spirit of collaboration that always lead with “do you think this would taste good?” and if we thought yes, we figured the rest out as we went. So, as these things go, one day he rang me up: “What do you think of doing a custom release with Compass Box?” I told him he was nuts, they don’t do those. He said he’d talk to them, we could probably work through that. I said alright, I’m interested but on one condition – I want to go to them. No samples, only lab work. Their turf, we go all in. He said alright. A couple weeks later he let me know “we’re in”. So, we booked our flights with just a couple weeks before takeoff (I don’t recommend this but you do what you must) but we got our plane tickets and our passports ready and jetsetted to London to meet up with James from Compass Box and to get to work. In the weeks between the green light to come and lead our little blenders invasion we’d been in contact with James about all sorts of things but most importantly what we liked to drink and some dreams we had. I like fatty, rich, opulent whiskeys, heavy sherry but bold oak and plenty of minerality and that pop of love that ex-bourbon can bring. Will likes Linkwood. He likes Linkwood a lot. He also liked all of those other things. Word got out that they had Clynelish in their warehouses, and sherry finished Clynelish at that. (My only 10/10 scotch is old sherried Clynelish). We also agreed that since my previous Laphroaig Single Cask was peated that we’d skip the peat on this one. James took notes, and offered some insight and he told us he’d go dig into the warehouses and get a blenders selection of samples ready. Now, we gotta talk about London for a second. I love Scotch, but there are some elements of London that also jumped out at me. I arrived about 18 hours before Will (we flew separate for maximum chaos). I’m from Wisconsin and that’s the home of fish fry in the US. It turns out London also loves fish fry. So I landed at 7am in the morning and found a place for a fish and chips. Awesome shit. You should eat fish before noon at least once in your life, but probably never twice. Checked that box. London also loves cask ale. It’s low ABV beer that’s produced and held in cask and pumped out with a special little spigot thing. It’s kinda flat, it’s super delicious, and *it’s dirt cheap* (by American standards) so I found a couple of those in my time after arriving. And London has incredible Indian food. So, I got started on some of that as well. I had some meetings, took those and fought the urge to take a nap as I needed to bust jet lag. I wouldn’t be in London long, but we had an important day ahead so I fought the urge. The next morning, Will arrived, a couple hours before we were to meet at Compass Box. Maximum chaos, like I said. We found ourselves some breakfast, a cask ale and a train ticket to head off to the other side of London. A short ride later, we were standing in front of Compass Box headquarters and it was time to get started. Inside, James was waiting for us alongside some of his colleagues. The Compass Box headquarters is gorgeous. They have shelves with past limited releases, artworks of old labels on many walls and an entire test kitchen and bar for work-shopping cocktails and new recipes. But, we weren’t there to see the test kitchen. We were there for the lab. And to the lab we did head.  A test kitchen and a glimpse of yours truly. As promised, the Compass Box lab is loaded to the gills. They own casks from probably a hundred different distilleries. They have samples from each cask, from each past blend, from test blends, from new blends, and just about everything in between. They line the walls, the floor, the shelves, and more. It was a site to behold. And on a bench table in the middle of the room sat a sea of samples for us to get to work with.  Honing in.We set to work and got tasting. The list is too long to go through exhaustively but several hours later, we were dialing into some blends we really liked. Everything, for the most part, was single cask samples. One or two things weren’t. One sample stuck out, it said Spice Tree with some extra numbers on it. I asked what it could be, given that spice tree was already on the market (and admittedly wasn’t my favorite). Turns out, they had held some Spice Tree back for extra aging, and it hadn’t been proofed. What a world of difference that made, it was a completely different whiskey (in the best way). I took some notes, we continued on. Through the course of the day we produced a number of test blends, all good, and some great. But, several blends later, we ended up with a terrific combination of this extra-aged Spice Tree, a hefty portion of sherried Clynelish, we managed to also see a blend come together with some Linkwood as well. More iterations followed as we began to tweak components, adding and removing malt and grain components, settling entirely on a full malt catalog.  Will’s face when the Linwood comes out. It was all coming together, and we were pretty happy about it. But, James had some more tricks up his sleeves. They had a wee bit of 25yr Miltonduff on hand and he wondered how it would play together as well. It turns out that sometimes in life, all you need is a little 25yr Miltonduff to really pull a portrait together. It became an unbelievably opulent whiskey, bready and rich, fatty and full, a perfect tug of war between sherry and minerality, bright fruits and gorgeous waxy Linkwood dna. It punched and purred, it was jarring and loud with melodious sherried steps dancing away. It was an artist and two agents of chaos in a room making something new and most importantly of all, it was delicious. We shook on it, James said he’d set the components to marry and we’d see how it all came together with a proper marrying period. It’s good to blend and let components rest for a couple of weeks or months. It lets everything integrate, harmonize, and rest together. Done deal. We bottled up some “for the road and also for science” and set off for a bite given the long day of whiskey we’d had. I always like to take some for the road, it’s good to taste on different days and different times to really grasp it fully, and also to compare to the post-marrying period release. We hit a local lunch spot and had a pour of Art of Decadance, as well, which was an odd bottle for me. I’d bought it at home in the states right before coming out, but hadn’t had a chance to open it yet, so I had a pour at lunch in London just blocks from Compass Box headquarters. Serendipitous. It would come to be one of my favorite scotch releases of the spring. In a way this almost became a bigger, bolder, richer and fattier version of that pour, which was lovely. Will and I headed back to the hotel, now deep in the evening. We agreed that there is nothing better than a martini and some more Indian food after a hard day’s work and set out into the night. Over the next 48 hours, we’d blaze quite the trail through London, coming back to our lab samples to gather more notes, settle on our feelings that this blend met the mark, and consuming a number of cask ales and pub dishes. Landed back in the states and now months later, it was easy to reflect on and continue to love our whiskey more and more. Transatlanticism, as we’d come to agree on the name, would go on to pass internal and external checks with the folks at Compass Box and solidify as the name for our funky and chaotic coast to coast whiskey experience. It was so much fun to work with James and the team and bring an American perspective to the blend we wanted, fusing great elements of both continents in whiskey production and building a spiritual whiskey bridge between the two. Our weeks leading up to the blend, our few but long days in London and our long weeks after would all come together in a swirling whirlpool of opulent whiskey and passionate collaboration. And now, Transatlanticism is here.  The artwork is a tizyy, dizzying delight of elements from our travels, a binding whirlwind between New and Old world. The whiskey is a collaboration between myself (T8ke), Will Shragis and Compass Box under the Project Optimist umbrella. You’ll see the phrasing “Project Optimist” left and right in coming months and years, and this whiskey is a formal party to share a wild drinks project Will and I created that lives wildly in two lanes of the drinks business. In one lane, we consult with interesting and genuine producers across the entire beverage catalogue. In the other lane, we grab our creative hats and create drinks that otherwise wouldn’t exist with the producers we admire the most. Transatlanticism is our first release, and it is limited to 999 bottles, available soon in the United States. Residents of Texas will have an opportunity to taste it next weekend at The Houston Whiskey Social where Will will be pouring it, and purchase in Texas after in select, brick and mortar retailers. On the 18th, it will be available online. It’ll run through our standard release cadence, so don’t fear, you’ll have a shot. Compass Box Transatlanticism by T8ke & William Schragis |
- Distilled: Scotland (Various)
- Bottled: Compass Box
- Information: Blend of
- Extra Aged, High Proof 13yr Spice Tree (23.3%)
- First Fill Moscatel Matured 9yr Linkwood (35.2%)
- First Fill Vin Santo Cask Matured 9yr Clynelish (9.4%)
- First Fill Ex-Bourbon Barrel Matured 13yr Clynelish (16.9%)
- First Fill Ex-Bourbon Barrel Matured 25yr Miltonduff (15.2%)
- ABV: 51.1% ABV
- Yield: 1032 Bottles Produced, 999 Bottles Available in The US
- Details: Natural Color, Non-Chill-Filtered
- The Schtick: With extreme optimism, together we produced “Transatlanticism”. This whiskey is designed to be loud and structured, woody and full of fruit, honeyed with a sense of balance. Only this meeting of the minds could weave together a spirit this bold.”
- Price: $199
- T8ke’s Tasting Notes:
- Nose: An orchard on the nose, there’s tons of waxed apple, pear, peach, plum and a heavy fig note. Minerality, lemon peel, vanilla cream, decadent malt, honey butter and toffee pair wonderfully, rich and layered. Spice dances on a deeper inhale, blending french oak, black pepper, a hint of ginger, and satisfying richness to pair with the sweet, waxy fruits of the nose.
- Taste: The palate is expressive, lively, visous and layered. Raisin bread, turkish delight, butter cake and candied figs sit heavily on the palate, the proof punches with heaviness and density rather than pinpricks, bringing together rich, savory, nutty sweet wine character, a balancing pang of acidity and gobs of rich oak, dates and a wisp of minerality.
- Finish: A long, flighty, finish – carries far and wide, deep and decadent. Red currants, apple and orange peel, gorgeous toffees, dates, raisin bread, french oak spice and lovely brioche, minerality and oak.
- Overall: It’s bold, it’s dense, it’s rich, and it’s the perfect balance of sweet desserts, decadent wine, fresh fruits with an acid punch and opulent, integrated tannin and waxed fruits. This is a special whiskey and one I’m thrilled we brought to life.