Honey | Fresh baked bread | Hay | Almond | Lemon

Lemon | Toffee | Crisp apple | Pear | Pastry

Lemon | Caramel | Toasted malt | Light earthiness | Very light smoke

This latest special release from Copperworks is part of their Whiskey Club. So far, these club releases have featured unusual finishing barrels that don’t necessarily have mass-market appeal, but push boundaries of the unfolding American single malt category, with past releases such as Arette Cask Finish and Amaro Cask Finish American single malts. For this release, the 100% malted barley mash was distilled using Pacific Northwest malted Baronesse pale barley and then matured in a cask previously used by Auchroisk distillery to mature scotch.

There have been a lot of American single malts finished in an ex-scotch barrel, so there’s an assumption going into this that you know what you’re going to get. But that would be the farthest thing from the truth. Anyone expecting a smoke or peat-heavy sip will be duly disappointed.

Lemon is a flavor found throughout the sip and isn’t one often associated with scotch-finished whiskeys. A lot of the heavy lifting can be attributed to the malted Baronesse pale barley and how Copperworks crafts its brand of American single malts. This is a decidedly sweet-tasting sip; crisp and light, with delicious notes of baked bread, almond, honey, toffee, pear, pastry, and toasted malt. It has a slight earthiness and a very delicate smoky note on the tail end of its finish, and, to its credit, it's nowhere near as polarizing as you might expect, instead drawing out a flavor profile that many will find appealing.

Copperworks Scotch Cask American Single Malt is a delicate, light pour that benefits from being sipped on its own. In a flight, its delicate virtues are unfortunately lost, but on its own, it takes many of the qualities that Copperworks does best and adds an extra layer. Unfortunately, it's a single barrel, and only a very limited number of bottles are available. Hopefully, the company will release more ex-scotch cask-finished product in the future. For American single malt fans, put this release along with Copperworks on your immediate radar.