Magic Cask Blended Malt Scotch Whisky CB (Compass Box)

Magic Cask is a blended malt from Compass Box, the London blending house founded by John Glaser in 2000, and it sits in the Imperial listing because most of it is single malt from the closed Imperial distillery. Imperial fell silent in 1998 and was demolished in 2013, so the first fill ex-Bourbon Imperial casks at its core draw on a finite stock. Compass Box bottled it in March 2020 as a Limited Edition of 5,538 bottles.

The blend is built mostly from Imperial single malt taken from first fill ex-Bourbon barrels, married with a smaller portion of younger Speyside malt that Compass Box racked into first fill butts seasoned with Oloroso sherry. The recorded recipe runs to around 92% first fill ex-Bourbon and 8% ex-Oloroso sherry. The ex-Bourbon wood drives vanillin, which reads as vanilla, and oak lactones, which carry coconut, while the Oloroso fraction contributes melanoidins for fig and raisin in a supporting role.

It is bottled at 46%, with natural colour and without chill filtration. The first fill bourbon character leads with maltol for toffee and a citrus lift, while the Oloroso portion adds cocoa and a light leather edge over Imperial's stewed orchard fruit. Recorded bottle notes run to vanilla, citrus, cooked fruit, honey, leather and chocolate.