A Lark official bottling with quite an usual name, and quite an unusual cask regimen, that will hopefully help to quell some recent controversy.
It's been quite a while since I last tasted an official bottling from Lark Distillery - probably a few years, in fact. I must admit that the 'brand' has lost some of its lustre to me of late, in fact probably since AWH - now 'Lark Distilling Co', which is a better name than Australian Whisky Holdings - took ownership. Their handling of the Nant debacle has caused quite the stir, and with good reason, and it seemed like their intentions with the Overeem brand were also a little questionable - although the latter has now been resolved by the sale of the distillery back to the founding family - by way of Jane Overeem and her husband Mark Sawford. As for their clean-up of the Nant devastation, and a couple of very questionable (and in one case, potentially misleading) naming, labelling and branding decisions that have been made recently, the Lark brand and the name itself have been somewhat tarnished in the eyes of many Australian enthusiasts - myself included. Note that I've mentioned 'the name' separately from 'the brand' there, because in my view they're two different things - while AWH does own the legal rights to the Lark name, the name itself stems from the distillery founder and the godfather of Australian whisky, Bill Lark, and his family - all of whom are highly valued contributors to the Australian whisky industry. And I would argue that lately that name has not been given the level of respect and reverence that it deserves. These sore points are really a discussion for another day, but if you'd like more information take a glance at Andrew Derbidge's thoughts on these matters here on his blog, Whisky & Wisdom. I must admit this particular whisky we're looking at today has gone some way to restoring my faith in Lark Distillery itself. It's important to remember that a distillery's ownership and the sometimes misguided - or in Nant's history, outright fraudulent - decisions and practices of those owners do not necessarily reflect the hard work of the distillery staff, or even the quality of the product itself. And Lark is no exception to that.
Lark Distillery has always been a relatively quiet achiever, at least when compared with fellow-Tasmanian Sullivan's Cove and some of the more vocal mainland Australian distilleries. But there's no denying that the distillery itself has released some very good whiskies over it's 28-year history, many of which may not have received the attention that they deserved. I do have to point out though that many of the more recent examples, particularly the limited releases, have been priced very highly, and often the bottling strength is not as high as you'd expect. The 500ml bottle size also needs to be taken into account. I must admit though that their two core range bottlings, the entry-level "Classic Cask" and the "Cask Strength" are generally more reasonably priced at around $140 and $200 AUD respectively, although in my experience the quality of those two bottlings has varied wildly in their history. But compared to the likes of a past bottling of a 9-year old single ex-bourbon cask for example, that was bottled at just 43% and sold for a ridiculous $450 AUD, that's quite reasonable! Most of my remaining affection for this distillery has been driven by three points that are still going strong - number one, the work of independent bottler Tim Duckett's Heartwood, who in many cases has used Lark-origin spirit to incredible effect; number two, the outstanding tours of the distillery when in Tasmania (covered here in detail), and number three, witnessing the passion, enthusiasm, and humility of both the Lark family themselves and the members of the Lark distillery team that I've had the pleasure of meeting either during those tours (e.g. now-distillery manager Craig Johnstone and head distiller Chris Thomson), or on many visits to their Cellar Door (bar) in Hobart.
The Lark that we're looking at today, official name "Sherry Aged & Sherry Finished 2020", is a limited release that was relatively reasonably priced for what is on offer - $239 AUD for the 500ml bottle at 50.8% ABV. I'm sure the eyebrows of many overseas readers just shot towards their hairlines, but unfortunately, that is the going rate for a higher strength, limited release Tasmanian whisky these days. In fact there are plenty of examples that are priced much, much higher. As you can probably guess, the name refers to a rather unusual maturation regimen, where two 100-litre (Lark Distillery's preferred cask size) ex-sherry casks were tipped into a single "extremely old" 500-litre ex-sherry butt sourced from the excellent Seppeltsfield winery in South Australia. Whether or not this is a single cask bottling will be controversial, and that has been a hot topic recently, since it hasn't been fully-matured in a single cask, and is the result of two casks being combined/vatted into one larger cask for finishing. Personally, I don't think it really matters! Technically, both of those cask types should probably be named Apera (the official name for sherry-style fortified wines produced in Australia) rather than sherry, although it's entirely possible that they pre-dated the Apera ruling, which only happened in 2011. This method of maturing in smaller first-fill casks and then finishing in a larger and older cask is not unheard of, but is quite unusual and is the opposite of what would usually happen in the whisky world, where larger and less active cask/s would be re-racked in to smaller and more active cask/s. That larger tired cask is still technically a first-fill cask though, since it last held fortified wine and hadn't yet been used for whisky maturation, but its age will mean that the oak itself will have had much less impact, while the previous contents, the 'sherry' or Apera itself, will have thoroughly soaked into the wood, and will have plenty of influence on the spirit. This whisky will have some large shoes to fill for me, since this style of maturation would usually be more of the realm of the independent bottlers - so competition from the likes of Heartwood's excellent Market Correction and @#$%^&* 4 for example, which were both distilled at Lark, will be heavy. Should make for a great comparison!
Colour: Very dark red-amber.
Nose: Big, rich and powerful. Sherry monster. Loads of spiced dried fruit, flambéed plum pudding with extra orange peel. Rum & raisin dark chocolate, and some dank and damp old wood. Then some spearmint, more orange peel, and roasted hazelnuts dusted with brown sugar. Great nose!
Texture: Heavy weight. Big, warming and rich. Oily and relatively soft, but still a slight touch of heat.
Taste: Sherry bomb, of course! Sweet juicy raisins, more orange peel, Christmas plum pudding and mixed dried fruit. A little black cherry syrup too. A touch of heat, turning into black pepper and an earthy drying astringency.
Finish: Long length. More black cherry syrup and bitter dark chocolate, orange peel again, and sticky date pudding with brown sugar toffee and some fresh dates on the side. Some wood spices - cinnamon and nutmeg, slight touch of clove - and a slight earthy note drying things out towards the end.
Score: 4 out of 5.
Notes: The quintessential Australian sherry bomb. Does what it says on the tin really, and lovers of 'sherry'-led Australian whiskies, plus the likes of Heartwood, Highwayman et al will of course find this Lark to be right up their alley. This would make for a fantastic Christmas day dram, even in the 30+ degree Australian version of Christmas - OK, maybe once the air con has kicked in! Normally our Australian sherry bombs of this style would be higher in strength, but this Lark doesn't suffer from that reduction at all - in fact it I'd say it actually works in its favour. There's plenty of flavour, and obviously a huge sherry influence - anti-sherry drammers need not apply. The nose on this Lark is fantastic, and the palate and finish don't really disappoint either. I must admit that considering the quality on offer here, the original pricing was really quite reasonable compared to some (most) of the competition, and they could've priced it significantly higher and gotten away with it - it still would've sold out, and if you're on the hunt for one of these now, you may have some trouble!
I'm sure if it was up to the distillery team we'd be seeing much more of this sort of release, forgetting the controversy of the last couple of "Lark Distilling Co." bottlings that seemed to be aimed towards the blissfully ignorant and naïve. Nothing like that to worry about with this release though, this is a faith restoring dram from the team at Lark Distillery. More of these please team!
Cheers!
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