At Old Kempton Distillery we truly love trying new ideas and collaborating with other businesses. Andrew Young, of Seppeltsfield winery fame, wanted to cooper a barrel that was slightly different from the standard whisky barrel in order to finish off his barrel-making education.

Oval barrel's have been used to age wines in Australia previously but never single malt whisky. It was thought that it could enhance the aging process with more spirit to surface ratio - this simply means the new make spirit has more contact with the stunning port saturated wood of the barrel. We also chose to age the barrel in the entrance of Dysart House in the hope that the fluctuating temperatures of the grand old building would also influence the whisky maturation.

The re-coopered Seppeltsfield port barrel was delivered to Old Kempton Distillery by Andrew Young and filled on the 9th July 2016 by our distillers and board members including Bill Lark, Clinton Steel, Paul Crew, Terry Cuthbertson, Dean Jackson and John Ibrahim. It was then placed in the entry way and left to mature until being decanted on the 11th September 2020.

Within months of the barrel being filled the stunning port colour had already begun to show in the spirit and over time it simply got darker and richer. In late August 2020 the oval barrel was bought before the tasting panel for discussion. We already knew this was a limited barrel and we knew that there was only one very lucky group of people we wanted to offer this special release too.