New Whiskies from Penelope, Bomberger's, Nc'nean Quiet Rebels 4th Edition & More

It’s a light menu of new rollouts this week, but we’ve got entirely new creations from Penelope and Bomberger’s, the Michter’s sister label dedicated to the distillery’s legacy. Buffalo Trace has added to its Experimental Collection with a hops-infused expression so far out that it’s technically not even a whiskey. West Highlands scotch maker Nc'nean is back with a fourth edition of its Quiet Rebels label, while Highland Park and Glenlivet both offer multi-thousand dollar ultra-aged releases.

Michter’s Bomberger’s PFG Kentucky Straight Bourbon

ABV: 50.1%
SRP: $140
Availability: Limited

For the first time since its introduction in 2015, the Bomberger’s range has a new line extension. The whiskey, Bomberger’s PFG—which stands for Precision Fine Grain—starts as Kentucky straight bourbon. After full maturation in a toasted and charred oak barrel, the whiskey is placed into a second proprietary barrel, constructed from toasted and charred French fine-grain oak. The PFG finishing barrels blend wood from various origins, including the Tronçais, Allier, Nevers, and Vosges forests; once cut, the wood is air-dried outdoors for a minimum of 40 months.

Bomberger’s is typically released once a year alongside the other Michter’s Legacy Series whiskey, Shenk’s Homestead. The brand gets its name from Abraham Bomberger, a Dutchman who purchased Shenk’s Distillery (the precursor to the original Michter’s Distillery in Pennsylvania) in the 1860s and renamed it after himself.

Penelope Wheated Bourbon

ABV: 47.5%
SRP: $40
Availability: Nationwide

Penelope has added a fifth whiskey to its permanent range. The new wheater is made from a mashbill of 74% corn, 16% wheat, 7% rye, and 3% malted barley. It joins four other bourbons in the Core series: Four-Grain, Architect (finished with French oak staves), Barrel Strength, and Toasted.

Business partners Mike Paladini and Danny Polise founded Penelope in 2018. Since then, the two have built their brand off of sourced whiskey and made use of many creative finishes, both in the core range and in limited releases.

Buffalo Trace Experimental Collection: Spirits Distilled From Grains and Hops

ABV: 45%
SRP: $47
Availability: Limited; distillery only

Buffalo Trace’s latest release aims to bridge the gap between whiskey and beer—though it technically isn’t a whiskey. A little over a decade ago, master distiller Harlan Wheatley conducted an experiment to explore the flavors and qualities that beer hops could bring to a distilled spirit. He selected two hop strains—a Czechoslovakian variety called Saaz and an American one named Zythos—that were used to infuse new-make distillate for 30 minutes. After the infusion, the liquid was aged for 11 years and 7 months in charred oak barrels.

This marks the 26th release in Buffalo Trace’s Experimental Collection, a series of intriguing one-off releases orchestrated by Wheatley. As the name suggests, each is the result of some experimental production technique. Earlier expressions tinkered with cask finishing, alternative grains, entry proofs, and mashbills.

Nc’nean Quiet Rebels Amy Single Malt Scotch

ABV: 48.5%
SRP: $110
Availability: Global release of 10,132 bottles, 630 bottles for the U.S.; delivery to 44 states from ncnean.com and at retail in 25 states; imported by ImpEx Bev

Nc’nean, the independent organic Highland distillery, is releasing the fourth edition in its Quiet Rebels series. These expressions are one-off creations personally chosen by members of the Nc’nean team; the honor is granted to staff members strictly in order of when they joined the team. Like all Nc’nean whiskies, Quiet Rebels Amy is made from 100% organic Scottish barley. Amy Stammers, Nc’nean’s head of sustainability, joined the company in 2017 and chose a combination of 63% STR casks, 19% Maury casks, and 18% bourbon casks for her whisky. Maury is a type of vin doux naturel, and the casks came from a French vineyard that follows organic and biodynamic principles.

Stammers began her career at Nc’nean as the visitor center manager but was drawn to Nc’nean’s focus on sustainability. As head of sustainability, her role includes measuring and reducing the distillery’s carbon footprint, working on net zero and B-corp credentials, and educating the team, visitors, and stakeholders about sustainability.

World Whiskey Society Green Code Kentucky Straight Bourbon

ABV: 48%
Price: $50
Availability: online; select retailers nationwide

Independent bottler World Whiskey Society (WWS) has unveiled a Kentucky straight bourbon with sustainability at the forefront. Sourced from Bardstown Bourbon Co. bourbon, it has a mashbill of 75% corn, 13% rye, and 12% malted barley and is aged 5 years, though it doesn’t carry an age statement. With a price of $50, this is WWS’s lowest-priced whiskey yet.

The spotlight for Green Code doesn’t fall on the bourbon itself but rather on the eco-friendly packaging that boasts a fully recyclable paperboard bottle. The packaging is not only five times lighter than traditional glass but also touts an 84% lower carbon footprint. It’s decorated with illustrations that celebrate Kentucky’s heritage, featuring the state bird, the Kentucky Cardinal, and iconic horse jockeys that pay tribute to the state’s equestrian heritage.

MaltyVerse New Single Barrel Releases

MaltyVerse is a new project from the team behind the whiskey brokerage Barrel Global. It’s slated to be a series of limited-edition single cask whiskies from distilleries in the U.S. and Scotland. Each release will tie into a virtual comic series—inked by illustrator Carl Harrison—set 100 years into the future, where whisky is as rare as gold and villains conspire to steal it. Here are the three new expressions:

MaltyVerse “Wreck in Kentucky” Single Barrel Bourbon (No. 31020233)

ABV: 48%
SRP: $110
Availability: Online exclusive

MaltyVerse “No Pressure” Single Barrel Bourbon (No. 2007723)

ABV: 48%
SRP: $90
Availability: Online exclusive

MaltyVerse “Agent W and the Secret Auction” Single Cask Single Grain Scotch (No. 61973)

ABV: 48%
SRP: $400
Availability: Online exclusive

Wreck in Kentucky, is a 6 year old distilled at Green River in 2018 from a mashbill of 75% corn, 21% rye, and 4% malted barley. No Pressure was sourced from MB Roland, a small grain-to-glass distillery in Pembroke, and aged for 5 years from a mashbill of 78% corn, 17% rye, and 5% malted barley. Fewer than 250 bottles of each expression were produced. The sole scotch in the trio, Agent W and the Secret Auction, is a rare 30 year old single grain from Cambus, a Diageo-owned Lowlands grain distillery that shuttered in 1993. The whisky was distilled in 1991 and was aged in a sherry butt before being bottled in 2021. Approximately 550 bottles were produced.

COLLECTIBLE

Glenlivet 40 year old Single Malt Scotch

ABV: 46.9%
SRP: $6,000
Availability: Permanent release available by inquiry through the Glenlivet website and Total Wine’s concierge program; imported by Pernod Ricard

Glenlivet has added a 40 year old as the oldest permanent expression in its core range. Before now, only independent bottlings of Glenlivet and a single cask expression bottled in 2005 have carried this age statement.

Kevin Balmforth, Glenlivet’s cask master, finished the new 40 year old in casks seasoned with a bespoke blend of oloroso and Pedro Ximénez sherries. Blends of oloroso and Pedro Ximénez sherries are known as cream sherries, but it’s rare to find this term on a whisky label: the exception being Irish Distillers, which recently embraced the term for Redbreast 18 year old. Instead, producers prefer to use alternative phrases like ‘amoroso-seasoned,’ or in the case of this Glenlivet, ‘seasoned with a bespoke blend of oloroso and Pedro Ximénez sherries.’ Find this on a whisky label, and you’ll know that it’s a tasty cream sherry finish. Given the four decades it’s taken for this Glenlivet to age, cask master Balmforth watched these casks closely to ensure the finish brought out the desired extra depth and flavor he was looking for to create this precious single malt.

Highland Park 56 year old Orkney Single Malt Scotch

ABV: 47.1%
SRP: $53,500
Availability: Launching in the U.S. in spring; imported by Edrington

When Gordon Motion first stepped into his role as master whisky maker at Orkney-based Highland Park Distillery 17 years ago, he came across 10 barrels that were distilled in 1968. The latest bottling, an oloroso cask-finished 56 year old single malt, was drawn from one of those casks. The release totals around 170 bottles.