Compass Box The General 33 year Old 70cl

Compass Box The General Scotch Whisky

The company at the forefront of this is Compass Box, founded in 2000 by John Glaser, a former marketing director for the Johnnie Walker brand. Their core range consists of The Spice Tree, The Peat Monster, Story of the Spaniard, Oak Cross and Hedonism blends, and they regularly produce limited editions as well. The company prides itself on its boundary-pushing approach to its creations, and on occasion, boundary-crossing creations, such as the original Spice Tree in 2005 which was banned by the Scotch Whisky Association for its use of suspended staves in casks. Despite investment from Bacardi in 2015, the company continues to push the envelope and rebel against tradition, most notably in its Scotch Whisky Transparency campaign, launched in 2016 following another disagreement with the SWA, this time about their detailed revealing of the recipes of their whiskies.

The General was a 2013 limited-release blend from Compass Box. The whisky was produced by combining two very well-aged casks of blended whisky. Both were blended at a very young age, and not being required for bottling at the time, were placed back into cask. One of the barrels was 33 years old, and the other remains a mystery.

The blends contained whiskies matured in both sherry and American oak casks, and the two barrels were blended again by Compass Box to produce this compelling release.