Compass Box Celestial (The Extinct Blends Quartet)

Compass Box Celestial (The Extinct Blends Quartet) is a blended Scotch from Compass Box, marrying malt whiskies for character with grain whisky for a smoother, lighter frame. Grain from distilleries such as the closed Port Dundas often forms the backbone of blends like this. Port Dundas grain, light and sweet, was a natural fit for blends like this.

A blended Scotch combines malt and grain whiskies of different ages and origins. Drawing on well aged stock, the malt lending depth while the grain gives a creamy, rounded base. Matured in a refill ex-Bourbon cask, letting the clean grain character speak. Patience is everything with grain, the finest examples resting for decades. The blender's craft is to balance the parts into one whole.

At 50%, undiluted, it is concentrated. The malts bring honey, dried fruit and orchard sweetness, the grain a creamy vanilla and coconut, with broken down lignin lends vanilla and oak lactones a gentle coconut, with a butterscotch and toffee sweetness adding its own note. The texture is oily and mouth coating, a hallmark of mature grain. The finish is long, waxy and warming. A rounded, approachable blend in the house style.