The fifth generation of Chieftain Cigar Malts, fit for a King…who likes Cigars

Posted on October 1, 2007
Filed Under Blend, For the collector, Malt, WhiskyBuzz |

Ian Macleod Distillers has launched the fifth edition of its award winning Chieftain’s Cigar Malt Limited Edition Collection, selected by a panel of whisky and cigar experts for connoisseurs who appreciate the finer things in life. The collection’s hallmark is that each bottling must be fit for a King, a Leader or in the Celtic world, a Chieftain.

Marketing Director, Iain Weir commented: “The latest collection of Chieftain Cigar Malts is definitely fit for a king. Due to the overall quality of over ten different potential single cask Cigar Malts we sampled, we decided for the first time this year to bottle four Cigar Malts – a Classic, a Robusto and a Mild for worldwide sale and a 75cl Château La Nerthe Finish for the USA and SA only.

Since 1936, Ian Macleod Distillers has amassed an enviable cask stock from Scotland’s many distilleries. These award-winning whiskies range from classic 10 and 20 Year Olds to 50 Year Old vintages. The panel selects a strictly limited number of rare single casks from key Scottish distilleries to bottle as part of the Chieftain’s Cigar Malt collection.

This year, due to the new Scottish smoking laws and prior to the English smoking ban, the carefully selected panel of nosers, tasters and smokers travelled south to Berwick, just over the Scottish border, to enjoy a combination of smoking cigars and tasting the many cask samples of the 2007 pre-selection of cigar single malts.

The panel was composed of Keir Sword and Stuart Smith, both from the Cigar Box and Royal Mile Whiskies in Edinburgh; Regis Lemaitre, Spirits Consultant, RegisWhiskymad; Rob Allanson, editor of the Cigar and Whisky magazines; and Jens Tausch, of the European Cigar Cult Journal, as well as Antony McCallum-Caron, Ian Macleod Distillers’ Rare Malt Manager.