Ardmore & Caol Ila The National Choice Jokers 2 x 70cl

Ardmore & Caol Ila The National Choice Jokers 2 x 70cl

The following lot is for the two joker cards from a collaboration between The National Choice and Taiwan's Tiger's Finest Selection. This is a set of seven whiskies which celebrates the rarest hand in the game of poker, The Royal Flush. Each card in a Royal Flush is represented and the set also includes a pair Jokers.

• Ardmore 2013 The National Choice 56.8% 70cl 
• Caol Ila 2016 The National Choice 57.5% 70cl #359574 

Each one of these two whiskies has been aged in a single ex-Sherry octave before being bottled at cask strength in March 2021.  Each is limited to just 75 bottles.

Ardmore was built by Wm. Teacher at the end of the 19th century, and as a rare peated Highland single malt, provided the smoky qualities in their well-loved blends. Now in the hands of Beam Suntory, there have been very few official bottlings, but the independent releases that have appeared over the years are much sought after.

Caol Ila distillery was built in 1846 by Hector Henderson, who was bought out from the venture a little over 10 year later by Bulloch Lade. The blending firm merged with DCL (now Diageo) in 1927, who still run the distillery today. In 1972 the original site was demolished and replaced by a new one. When distilling resumed in 1974, Caol Ila was the largest producer of single malt on the Isle of Islay. Despite this, due to its importance in popular blends such as Johnnie Walker, its single malt brand disappeared under United Distillers, and it was not until 2002 that it would return, when the 12 year old was revived by Diageo. The Flora & Fauna release was well-regarded in the meantime, but it was independent releases like this that gave the best opportunity to sample this much-loved single malt.

h/k