Old Buck Private Cask Tasting

We have a local whisky appreciation community in Turku region. It’s called “Viskiryhmä Turku” and it has its own group in Facebook. On April 10th of 2019 there was an offer posted on the group, spotted from Brewery Restaurant Beer Hunter’s Facebook profile. Beer Hunter’s is the home of first Finnish single malt called Old Buck.

In that post, the makers of Old Buck were offering private casks of their locally famous single malt whisky. An offer, no whisky aficionado could refuse! They had a selection of eight 200 liter Ex-Bourbon casks and eight 65 liter Ex-Bourbon and Ex-Sherry casks. Both, peated and unpeated spirits were available.

We, at our local whisky club, almost instantly made a decision to buy a 65 liter Sherry Firgin cask filled with peated spirit. The thought of getting our hands on our very own private cask Old Buck felt exciting. Especially when there was peated sherry cask matured version available – that’s an exotic Old Buck for sure.

2021 – ready to be sampled

On 27th of November 2021, when the spirit had been resting for almost two and a half years in its sherry home, it was time to taste it. We decided to take a mini bus from Turku to Pori, to see what the father of Old Buck, master distiller Mika Tuhkanen had been cooking.

Tasting happened at Old Buck’s home turf, Brewery Restaurant Beer Hunter’s. Mika was present, it was an honor to have him with us. And it’s always exciting to hear stories about whisky making. Mika surely had lots of stories to share.

It was fascinating to hear that our very own Old Buck was most likely one of the last whiskies completely produced at their small brewery warehouse. Nowadays they have a bigger production site nearby their brewery restaurant.

Tasting Notes

Score

Old offer sheets of private casks (in Finnish)