Age: 21 Years old
Proof: 114.2 proof
Mash bill: 78% Corn | 21% Rye | 1% Malted Barley
Tasting Notes: Raspberry, nectarine, cocoa butter, magnolia blossom and honey with whisps of tantalizing toffee waft solicitously from the glass. The aromas make promises you hope the liquid can keep.
The Peregrine 2024 palate does not have a distinct beginning, middle and end. Touching the glass to your lips is like plunging into a rushing river of flavor. Its crisp, bright fruit sweeps you up into a serpentine torrent of chocolatey currents, seizing the wind from your chest, strumming your heartchords with a succession of cinnamon, sugar and ripened red pear. The twisting notes of dragonfruit, molasses, and nougat are intricate and luscious, undulating from density to richness.
The final crescendo of cloves, couverture chocolate and apricots crest and fall like the rush of a crashing wave skimming across a long, flat beach. As you catch your breath, each exhale echoes nutmeg and woodspice. The moment you get off the ride, you just want to strap in and take another sip.
About the product: Peregrine First Flight captured a profile we absolutely love. In succeeding First Flight (FF), we wanted Peregrine 2024 to exist in the same realm while developing its own distinct qualities. FF’s original blend presented an excellent fruit profile, a creamy mid-palate, and a rich spicy finish. However, in hindsight, we relied on the New Wood casks to thicken the mid-palate and soften the spicy black pepper bite on the finish. New Wood is an amazing barrel type. It rounds the profile, softening the edges and melding together the progressions and evolutions of the whisky. But it also occasionally suppresses and dries out some flavors.
Our goal with Peregrine 2024 was to provide more thickness to the mid-palate and dial back the black pepper on the finish, allowing us to rely less heavily on New Wood. Our ratio of Cognac to New Wood in FF was about 60:40. In the 2024 edition, the ratio of Cognac to New Wood was just about 70:30. By creating an oilier foundation in the initial blend, the resulting whisky is more mouthcoating and has more space for fruit character to ripen. In comparing the two, Peregrine 2024 presents a greater density of orchard fruit on the nose and mid-body and a heavier foundation beneath the New Oak wood caramels, giving the wood sugars greater resonance.