Pen-y-bryn Whisky Barrel, v2.0
August 28, 2026
Way back in 2019 we were among the many who worked with the good folks at the New Zealand Whisky Company to fill a 20-litre French red wine barrel with new spirit to become our first batch of private-label whisky. When we bottled it in early 2022 we thought we’d never get through the 37 500-litre botles at 47.5% ABV that it produced, but it turns out that not only do we enjoy a dram or so of it on the occasional evening, so do a lot of our guests (some of whom have liked it so much that they have bought bottles to take home with them). So it was not long before we decided to fill that barrel one more time, doing so in late November 2022. This afternoon we met with the master distiller at their new cellar door in the historic precinct of Oamaru to sample the new batch and decide at what ABV to bottle it. Straight out of the barrel it was measuring 61.2% alcohol, a touch less than the 62% that the previous batch came out at, and while the cask-strength whisky was very nice indeed, we decided to bottle this batch at 48%. While we have not yet done a side-by-side comparison of the two batches, we all very much enjoyed the flavour of the new whisky, which has quite a complex body and a nice lingering finish. We think we–and our guests–are in for another treat with this bottling.
If you are whisky fans, we can highly recommend stopping in at the new cellar door, which is located at the bottom end of Wansbeck Street at the intersection with Harbour Street in what used to be the bicycle shop (which has now moved into a larger space further up Wansbeck Street).
