Cooper King Port-Bound Single Malt

Once an architect and a scientist, Chris Jaume and Abbie Neilson – the husband-and-wife team behind Cooper King – were inspired to build their Yorkshire distillery by the ingenuity, determination and sustainable ethos of Tasmanian craft whisky distillers, discovered on an adventure to the island in 2014.

They founded Cooper King (named after Jaume’s great-great-grandfather, Charles Cooper King) in 2016, fired up their first gin still in 2018, their first whisky still in 2019, and have been making sustainable, small-batch spirits ever since, releasing their first single malt in October 2023.

Port-Bound is the latest in the distillery’s Expedition Series, a journey of discovery through their finest casks. Originally intended to be a Christmas release, the small port casks chosen by distiller Will Dobson to finish the whisky refused to be hurried, demanding a further four months of patient maturation to allow their opulent layers of flavour to soften and unfold. Classic, rich port cask flavours of jammy dark fruit, molasses and espresso coffee weight this indulgent dram. One of 924 bottles presented at 48% abv, natural colour and non-chill filtered.

Plump raisins, butterscotch and syrupy prunes on the nose melt into a palate thick with demerara sugars, confit oranges, liquorice, and creamy, vanilla-spiked coffee. Dark chocolate-covered cherries, tiramisu and blackcurrant leather linger on the decadent finish.