“RUBY TUESDAY” UNCHARTED WHISKY CO. GIRVAN 28 YEAR OLD SINGLE GRAIN SCOTCH WHISKY

Ruby Port Butt Distilled May 1996 Bottled March 2025 649 BottlesRegion Lowlands (Ayrshire)Distillery GirvanStyle Single GrainAge 28 yearsABV 54.1%Finish Ruby Port Butt (European oak)Outturn 649 bottles

A Side-By-Side Nobody Else Can Offer

The Clearest Lesson in What a Cask Finish Actually Does

The very first cask The Whiskey Lab ever bottled was Whispering Waters Girvan 27 Year, a full-maturation ex-bourbon single grain distilled in March 1997. This release is a Girvan distilled in May 1996, matured in ex-bourbon, then re-racked into a ruby port butt for its final years. Two sister distillates, born 10 months apart, aged nearly the same length of time. One finished in bourbon. One finished in port.

If you have ever wanted to actually taste what a cask finish does to a whisky, this is as close to a controlled experiment as whisky allows. Same distillery. Same era. Same base maturation. Different last act.

Girvan is a single grain distillery on the Ayrshire coast, built by William Grant & Sons in 1963 to produce clean, creamy column-still spirit for blending. That creaminess is what makes it so responsive to a cask like this. A heavier malt would fight the port. Girvan absorbs it, carries it, and still finishes with the soft vanilla core the distillery is known for.

Distilled May 10, 1996. Bottled March 2025 at cask strength, 54.1%. Single cask. 649 bottles. Natural colour. Non-chill filtered.

Same spirit, two different endings

Whispering Waters

Girvan 27 Year Ex-Bourbon

• Distilled March 27, 1997
• Bottled July 2024
• Full ex-bourbon maturation
• 52.6% ABV 265 bottles

What the cask was built to do: brown butter, coconut oil, overripe banana, buttery finish. Girvan in its natural form.

Uncharted Whisky Co.

Girvan 28 Year Ruby Port Finish

• Distilled May 10, 1996
• Bottled March 2025
• Ex-bourbon, re-racked into ruby port butt
• 54.1% ABV 649 bottles

What the finish changes: red berries, stewed fruit, leathery chocolate, syrupy mouthfeel. Same spirit, rewritten.

Distillery profile, Girvan

• Founded in 1963 on the Ayrshire coast, built by William Grant & Sons to produce grain whisky for the Grant’s blended range.
• Shares its site with Ailsa Bay, Grant’s single malt distillery.
• Uses column stills to produce an exceptionally clean, creamy grain spirit, purpose-built to carry cask influence without interfering with it.
• Independent bottlings of aged Girvan are among the most coveted grain releases in Scotland, precisely because the distillate takes so well to long maturation and active wood.

Cask profile, 60 year old ruby port butt

A butt is a large cask, roughly 500 liters, coopered in this case from European oak staves close to 4cm thick. Modern cooperages rarely build them this way anymore. The expense and the weight of the wood have pushed most production toward lighter, faster-turning casks.

Before this butt ever held whisky, it spent more than 60 years in solera-style service holding ruby port. Ruby is the bright, fruit-forward style of port, and in a solera the cask is continuously topped up year after year. Six decades of that cycle leaves a cask saturated with red fruit, spice, and European oak character. It does not just flavor the whisky. It rewrites it.

Tasting notesNoseRed berries and stewed fruit open first, wrapped in a deep woody spice. A few drops of water pull out fresh grassy notes that lift the whole profile.PalateSweeter and richer than the color suggests. Coats the mouth like syrup. The creamy backbone of Girvan single grain holds its ground underneath the unctuous ruby port character, with European oak pepper and mature leathery chocolate layering on top.FinishThe bright zing softens into clootie dumpling sweetness, melts back into the creaminess of the single grain, and settles into a clove-infused warmth that does not want to leave.A 28 year old whisky inside a 60 year old cask. The math alone makes it worth pouring.

The Whiskey Lab’s Quality Commitments

• Single Cask: Ensuring a unique profile for each release.
• True Cask Strength: Delivered with the full intensity of flavor.
• Natural Colour & Non-Chill Filtered: Preserving the authentic character and purity of the whisky.