Compass Box Explained

Compass Box is a producer, bottler and marketer of a range of blended Scotch whiskies. The company is headquartered in Richmond. Compass Box Whisky was founded in 2000 by American entrepreneur John Glaser, a former marketing director at Johnnie Walker.[1] [2] The current blending team at Compass Box is headed up by James Saxon as whiskymaking director[3]

The company's whiskymakers select distillates from a number of existing Scotch whisky distilleries, with the selected whiskies then being blended together and the resulting blend matured further.

Products

Compass Box's main product line, called the Signature Range, consists of the following:

Compass Box has sold Limited Edition whiskies such as 'Art & Decadence', 'Optimism', 'The General', 'The Lost Blend', 'Morpheus', the 'Canto Cask' series and the three-bottle 'Myths and Legends'. Compass Box has worked with restaurants, bars, and bartenders to produce the range. 'Juveniles' was blended with restaurateur Tim Johnston to favour the tastes of the classic French cuisine of Parisian bistro Juveniles Bistrot à Vins. 'Delilah's' was created in partnership with Chicago punk bar owner Mike Miller. London bartender Rosey Mitchell created 'The Circle' with Compass Box whisky makers. To celebrate the 20th anniversary, Compass Box has released a limited cask strength variant of the Compass Box Peat Monster in April 2023.[4]

The Extinct Blends Quartet

The Extinct Blends Quartet was created to pay homage to some of the blending team's favorite blends that have continued to hold historic importance and inspire fans to the heights of blended Scotch whisky. Fashions change, and formulae follow suit. Blended whiskies of the 1970s, '80s and '90s are very different to today's versions, even when the brand name remains the same. The Extinct Blends Quartet, as it unfolds, reimagines four blended Scotches from yesteryear, using some of the company's rarest and most idiosyncratic stocks of whisky.

The first three expressions of the series (Ultramarine,[5] Delos[6] and Metropolis[7]) were released between 2022 and 2023.The fourth and final bottle, Celestial, in 2024.[8]

Other Products

Apart from whiskies, Compass Box also produced 'Orangerie', made from whisky infused with orange zest and spices.

Contravention of Scotch Whisky Association regulations

In 2005 Compass Box released a Blended Malt Scotch Whisky called The Spice Tree in which the blend of single malt distillates had undergone a secondary partial maturation stage in casks containing additional, flat French oak inserts (also known as ‘inner staves’). The Scotch Whisky Association, a trade organisation that represents the Scotch whisky industry, felt that the use of such inner staves in the whisky maturation process was in contravention of the Scotch Whisky Regulations prevailing at the time and threatened legal action against Compass Box if they did not halt production.[9] In response, Compass Box altered the production process for subsequent releases, by having the secondary maturation stage take place in casks containing toasted French oak heads instead of the flat oak inner staves.

More recently, in 2015 Compass Box again disagreed with the Scotch Whisky Association when attempting to release complete information about every component whisky used in its blends, a step which the Scotch Whisky Association claimed was prohibited by both EU and UK laws. In response, Compass Box launched a 'Scotch Whisky Transparency' campaign to encourage greater transparency within the world of Scotch with other Scotch whisky producers – notably Bruichladdich – subsequently joined them in sharing full age component information about one or more of their blends.

Selected awards

External links

Notes and References

  1. http://www.bloomberglink.com/gatherings_participants_bio.php?gathering=61&Id=997
  2. Web site: Price . Forrest C. . Whisky Review Round Up: Compass Box Signature Range . The Whiskey Wash . 10 January 2019.
  3. Web site: Carruthers . Nicola . Compass Box names whisky making director . The Spirits Business . 7 March 2024.
  4. Web site: 2023-04-27 . Zum 20. Jubiläum veröffentlicht: Compass Box Peat Monster Cask Strength Origin Story • CaptainScotch.de . 2023-04-27 . CaptainScotch.de . de-DE.
  5. Web site: Compass Box Looks To Extinct Whiskies As It Unveils Ultramarine . Spirited.
  6. Web site: Compass Box Dives Back Into Extinct Whisky With Scotch Inspired By Greek Island, Delos . Spirited.
  7. Web site: Compass Box Looks To The Urban Origins Of Blended Scotch For Latest Addition To Extinct Blends Quartet, Metropolis . Spirited . 20 April 2024.
  8. Web site: 2023-10-31 . Compass Box Takes Us To The Celestial And Beyond With Last Of Extinct Blends Quartet . 2023-11-06 . 88 Bamboo . en.
  9. Web site: Archived copy . 2011-03-15 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120321085104/http://www.compassboxwhisky.com/pdf/TheSpiceTreeStory.pdf . 2012-03-21 . dead .
  10. Web site: Drinks International Supplement . 2023-11-06 . edition.pagesuite.com . en-US.
  11. Web site: Clipping . 2023-11-06 . edition.pagesuite.com.
  12. Web site: 2023-11-05 . Compass Box and Duty Free Global hail drinks industry accolade . 2023-11-06 . The Moodie Davitt Report . en-GB.
  13. Murray, Jim. Jim Murray's Whisky Bible 2011. Dram Good Books Ltd, 2010
  14. Web site: Whisky Advocate Blog . Whatdoesjohnknow.com . 2013-08-26.
  15. Web site: Whisky Advocate Blog . Whatdoesjohnknow.com . 2013-08-26.
  16. Web site: Icons of Whisky 2010 . Whiskymag.com . 2013-08-26 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130824235914/http://www.whiskymag.com/awards/icons_of_whisky/2010/ . 2013-08-24 . dead .
  17. Web site: Whisky Advocate Blog . Whatdoesjohnknow.com . 2013-08-26.
  18. Web site: World Whiskies Awards 2009 . Whiskymag.com . 2013-08-26 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130830180933/http://www.whiskymag.com/awards/wwa/2009/ . 2013-08-30 . dead .
  19. Web site: World Whiskies Awards 2008 . Whiskymag.com . 2013-08-26 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130901143630/http://www.whiskymag.com/awards/wwa/2008/ . 2013-09-01 . dead .
  20. Web site: Icons of Whisky 2007 . Whiskymag.com . 2013-08-26 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130824233328/http://www.whiskymag.com/awards/icons_of_whisky/2007/ . 2013-08-24 . dead .

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Compass Box".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.