26th August, 2014 by Becky Paskin

William Grant has discontinued its successful The Balvenie Tun 1401 series, which will be replaced by a series of annual releases under the Tun 1509 name.

The Balvenie Tun 1401 was first launched as a no-age-statement distillery exclusive in 2011, with additional batches released to different global markets twice a year since.

Its exclusivity and relative rarity earned the series a cult following with some bottles now selling for up to five times their value on the secondary market.

However, William Grant has chosen to suspend the series after nine releases, as its production had become “too impractical”. With a capacity of 2,000 litres, Tun 1401 was considered too small by the group to meet the global demands of whisky consumers. Tun 1509 has been specially built to hold four times as much liquid.

Sam Simmons, global brand ambassador for The Balvenie, told The Spirits Business: “People love 1401 and it usually sells out quite quickly, which is part of the reason why we are changing to a bigger tun. The demand is high, and instead of having to do different packages four times a year for different markets we can now just do one for the world.”

The first Balvenie Tun 1509 release will be a NAS, 47.1% abv, non-chill-filtered whisky comprised of 42 casks selected by malt master David Stewart, including 35 American oak barrels and seven European oak Sherry butts.

As with Tun 1401, all the casks have been allowed to marry together for a period of several months within Warehouse 24.

According to Simmons, the new tun will be capable of producing a similar recipe to that used for Tun 1401, just on a larger scale.

Stewart said of the release: “I’ve carefully considered each of the 42 whiskies in turn and they all bring something different to the table; combinations of spice, oak, delicacy and sweetness.

“This particular whisky has exceptional character; deep and rich on the nose, with floral notes, sweet vanilla and orange peel. Then it’s velvety smooth to taste with tangy citrus, mellow cinnamon spice and blossom honey.”

It will be rolled out to global markets from September 2014.

The Balvenie Tun 1858, which is produced exclusively for Taiwan, will continue to be sold.

The last Balvenie Tun 1401 was Batch 9, which was given a US-only release in late 2013.