Dingle-Distillery-Brochure.pdf - The Dingle News

Our Distiller’s Thoughts
Dingle Gold is our benchmark single malt whiskey using our single malt ageing system. The wash is
fermented in washbacks. Once distilled and collected, our spirit will undergo a novel system of maturation
unique to Dingle.
Ageing Dingle Gold whiskey at Dingle Distillery takes
place through the laborious and precise Spanish process
known as the Criaderas y Solera system. In this process,
the younger spirit is blended slowly and methodically with
other more mature spirit. The older whiskeys impart their
flavour to the younger ones, while the latter freshen the
former due to their youth and strength.
The new spirit is placed into the Añado barrels, large oak
ex-bourbon barrels.
The Solera System
The Anado Barrels
Criadera #3
Criadera #2
Criadera #1
The Solera Row - floor
As whiskey is drawn from the ‘solera’ row, bottled and
sold, spirit is drawn from the ‘Criadera #1 barrels (which
may be ex-Sherry Butts) to replenish the “solera” barrels–(never drawing of more than 1/3 of any barrel at
any time)–and so on through the successive next row of ‘Criadera’ above, i.e.: Criadera #3 (which may be export
pipes) is used to fill Criadera #2 and so on.
The solera system may add complexity, but it painstakingly and ingeniously
replicates the proven and beloved sherry technique called fractional
blending.
Here’s how it works:
Barrels of spirit of the same type but different vintage are stacked on top
of each other, the oldest on the bottom, and the youngest on the top.
With four rows of barrels representing four vintages of spirit, each year
anywhere from 10 percent to 30 percent of the bottom (the oldest)
barrels’ volume will be drawn off to be bottled as that year’s Solera whiskey:
Dingle Gold.
The headspace created by this drawing-off will be filled with spirit from the level above, and those barrels
will be filled with the level above them, and onwards and upwards, while the last year’s barrels on the top
level will be topped up with new spirit. Each year, as a limited amount of finished Dingle Gold is drawn off
from the bottom level of barrels, the average age of the whiskey at the bottom barrels will continue to rise
with the years until it reaches a constant average age. A solera that is eight levels deep (if 25 percent is taken
out of the oldest row for bottling each year) will produce whiskey that are an average age of 8 years old
after 10 years.
Using American oak casks releases sweet flavours (honey, vanilla, toffee...). But the the use of aged casks in
a Solera array brings out richness and nuances of caramel flavours, fruity notes, subtle char, dry fruits and
others. This ensures that future batches of Solera-reserved single malt whiskey always taste the same.