The Whisky Exchange debuts Black Friday whisky

by Owen Bellwood

Online retailer The Whisky Exchange has released a limited-edition 16-year-old Speyside Sherry cask whisky for Black Friday, which sold out online in 15 minutes.

The 16-year-old Speyside whisky was released at 6.00am this morning as part of the online retailer's Black Friday offerings. All 582 bottles have since sold out online. Aged in Sherry casks for 16 years, the mystery whisky comes from an unnamed "family-owned distillery somewhere in the wilds of Speyside." Billy Abbott from The Whisky Exchange described the whisky as having a "dark and foreboding" nose with aromas of "a slab of rich fruit cake topped with a slice of zingy lemon drizzle. Spicy apple pies studded with sugared raisins backed up by prunes and dates". Of the palate, he said: "A riot of flavour: Eccles cakes and stewed raisins to one side, spicy pastry to the other. Liquorice and bitter barrel char tussle in a corner. But the darkness is beaten back by zesty citrus and sweet fruit. Candied lemon floats over the top, dragging a string of apples and plums through a sea of dried fruit." Sukhinder Singh, co-founder and owner of The Whisky Exchange, said: "In recent years, Black Friday has become increasingly stressful with shoppers focused on fighting for the biggest discounts. Rather than slash prices, we decided to bottle a truly special whisky and offer it exclusively to our customers as a price that will make them smile, both when they buy it and when they taste it! This is an entirely unique single-cask bottling that under normal circumstances would fetch considerably more than we will be selling it for." Priced at £59.95 (US$79), 24 bottles are currently in stock at the Covent Garden store – which are expected to be gone by lunchtime.