Old Buck 4 year old private cask whisky review

Here are my thoughts on private cask bottling of Finnish 4 year old single malt called Old Buck, a whisky brand made famous by Pori based restaurant/micro brewery Panimoravintola Beer Hunter’s. Old Buck is officially the first Finnish single malt whisky ever.

In 2019, together with fellow Finnish whisky friends, we decided to invest in our own private cask of Old Buck. We chose a 65 liter sherry firkin cask made out of old Oloroso sherry barrel, filled with distillate made from 35 ppm peated malt.
In 2021 it was time to sample our precious single cask malt in a private tasting held in Pori.
In 2023 we finally managed to bottle it, a year too late in my honest opinion. The bottled amount was 35,7 liters so angel’s share was very high (this fact was known because it was already mentioned in the private cask brochure).

Like I mentioned, this whisky matured too long. Probably the optimal aging period would have been 3 years, since the sampling in 2021, at the age of almost 2,5 years felt very promising.

I even mentioned to master distiller Tuhkanen that in my opinion, we could bottle it right away. I was joking back then of course, but in hindsight, this whisky would have been much better at 2,5 years old than it is at age 4.

Still, no regrets. This was an unforgettable experience, all the way from picking the cask to private tasting and finally, getting your actual own private bottling of the legendary first Finnish single malt whisky brand, Old Buck.