Whisky innovators Compass Box release The Lost Blend Limited Edition as a homage to their own long lost whisky

Boutique Scotch whisky maker and craft blender, founded by John Glaser in 2000 has long since built up a cult following and are well known for quality, and innovation, with just a touch of quirkiness.  This new release is very much in keeping with this.

The Compass Box Signature Range of whiskies includes Asyla, Oak Cross, The Peat Monster, The Spice Tree and Hedonism. They also produce limited release whiskies annually, and Orangerie, a Scotch whisky infusion. In 2011 they launched a groundbreaking range of Blended Scotch whiskies called Great King Street. The first was called Artist’s Blend. Find out more about Compass Box here.

“Yes, sir, the stuff was distilled elixir of battle, money and high life.”  From The Lost Blend by O. Henry, 1907

For the first time, three different front labels adorn the front of the same whisky. THE LOST BLEND is the new limited edition release from award-winning Scotch Whisky maker Compass Box. This marriage of three single malts is a homage to their long lost (and much loved) Eleuthera whisky, and boasts the same unique smoky fruity style. After 10 years of searching, whisky maker John Glaser was finally able to track down the unique whiskies he required earlier this year. The result is The Lost Blend.

Bottled at 46% and packaged in a high quality gift box adorned with ‘lost items,’ it will be priced at $120 in the US, £85 in the UK (or buy it here for a bargain £78.95) and $100 in Europe. It will be available from 1st October in the US, UK, Europe and all key international Compass Box markets.

John Glaser adds, “In 2001, we created our first single malt blend which we called Eleuthera. It was an elegant marriage of approximately 80% unpeated Highland and 20% peaty Islay single malts. Alas, after 3 years, we were suddenly no longer able to obtain one of the key whiskies required for the recipe so, sadly, we retired Eleuthera in 2004. Quietly, I have been looking for whiskies that we could use to bring it back, even if temporarily, but without any luck. Until now.”

Glaser has had a name that he’s been waiting to use for a whisky project like this—The Lost Blend, inspired by the O. Henry story of the same name.  This sharp and witty portrait of life in a New York bar in the early 1900’s was published in 1907 and features two business partners who try to recreate a blend of different spirits with close to supernatural properties.

Compass Box has created three different front label designs all around the same theme: lost items. These include an antique nautical octant, a Woodstock typewriter, an Excelsior cylinder gramophone, the tragically lost RMS Lusitania, and of course the Dodo. The whisky behind each label is the same, and the three labels have been randomly bottled and put into cases, which allows customers an additional discovery to the whisky itself: which label did I get?

ABOUT THE LOST BLEND

This elegantly complex whisky is a union of rare old Highland single malts and a delicious peaty Islay single malt. An ethereal fruit and herbal character and a sweetness on the palate is buttressed by an underlying smokiness. Single malt whisky (of a certain age) from the Clynelish distillery, and a small cache of extraordinary whisky from the Allt-A-Bhainne distillery, aged in American oak barrels and just a few years shy of two decades old, is combined with malt whisky from the Caol Ila distillery. Bottled at 46% this limited edition of 12,018 bottles was bottled in August 2014. It is not chill-filtered and is natural colour.