Shelter Point The Collective
Specs
ABV: 46%
Age: 5-7 years
Recipe: A blend of malted and unmalted barley, rye and wheat whiskies
Distiller: Shelter Point
Country/Region: Canada/British Columbia
Price Paid (MSRP): Gift ($64 CAD / 750ml)
Tasting Notes
Nose: Sea salt and blueberries followed by honey, floral notes, peaches and vanilla. There’s browned meat and light smoke notes from the Laphroaig casks.
Palate: Medium mouth feel, simultaneously oily but chewy with honey and malt notes. Some nice black pepper spice comes through with berries, caramel, cereals grains, minerals and faint peat.
Finish: Long length, black pepper and cinnamon spice, salty, mint and smoke. The spice lingers for quite a while.
Rating: 77/100 – Great | Well above average
What a whisky from Shelter Point. Looking at the cask breakdown you would think The Collective would be a disjointed mess but it comes together so well. The base of the whisky emulates a lightly peated ex-bourbon barrel matured scotch but with layers of berries and caramel that I rarely find in that whisky profile. It’s difficult to describe, but the inclusion of malted wheat and unmalted grain whiskies also seems to have had an effect on the mouth feel. It’s oily but not entirely scotch-like and has a chewy quality that I associate more with bourbon. It’s pleasant and the 92 proof bottling feels just right.
At a price of roughly $60 USD for a standard size bottle, The Collective matches up very favorably against single malt scotches at that price point. Unfortunately availability is quite limited at this time, with distribution not even reaching across Canada. I’d love to see Shelter Point hit the States eventually, and with barrels already reaching 8 years I’m sure they’ll be putting out some even better releases when the time comes.
Additional Info: A blend of 5-7 year old whiskies from 5 barrels:
- Single malt barley aged in ex-bourbon for 6 years
- Single malt barley aged in ex-bourbon for 7 years
- Single malt wheat aged for 5 years in ex-bourbon
- Single grain barley (unmalted) aged in ex-bourbon for 4.5 years and then finished in ex-Laphroaig for 1 year
- Barley and rye blend aged in ex-bourbon for 4 years and then finished in ex-Laphroaig for 1 year
