Speyside Sherry Cask 12 Year Old - Berry Bros & Rudd

This fantastic Speyside single malt is soft, round, and elegant. A recommendation for all Speyside lovers.

With two Royal Warrants (authorization to supply as a British purveyor to the Royal Household) and over 300 years of history, Berry Bros. & Rudd is one of Britain's oldest wine and spirits merchants.

Its history can be traced back to 1698, when an enterprising woman, the Widow Bourne, opened an "Italian grocer's shop" at No. 3 St. James's Street, selling tea, snuff, spices, and the most fashionable drink of the day, coffee. The sign of the coffee mill still hangs at No. 3 today, as a tribute to the company's roots.

Over time, Berry Bros. & Rudd's focus shifted to something "stronger." As wine became more important to the business, so did spirits. In the early 19th century, they began bottling casks under their own label. This made BBR Britain's oldest independent spirits bottler. Three centuries later, the family business remains among the largest wine and spirits merchants on the British Isles.

The company's colorful history includes episodes such as supplying alcohol to smugglers in America during Prohibition and housing Napoleon III in the cellars beneath the shop. In 1994, BBR was the first wine and spirits merchant to have a presence on the World Wide Web. In 2010, another branch of BBR was opened: a brokerage business focused on wine trading.

Although much has changed over the years, BBR is still owned and managed by members of the Berry and Rudd families and continues to supply the British Royal Family, as it did during the reign of King George III. From time to time, customers are weighed on a huge coffee scale, a tradition that began in the 1760s. Lord Byron, William Pitt, and Beau Brummell are among those whose weights are recorded in BBR's ledgers.

Berry Bros. & Rudd's company philosophy comes down to a simple question: "Is it good to drink?"