Compass Box Oak Cross 2016 (70cl, 43%) ***sold***
Oak Cross was created to provide an insight into the best characteristics of American oak and French oak. A blend of Highland and Speyside single malts, it contains Clynelish, Dailuaine and Teaninch.
Compass Box worked with a small cooperage in France to produce new French oak heads to place on 40% of the whisky used in Oak Cross. Once again, Compass Box's innovative production methods received a less than warm reception from the Scotch Whisky Association!
Part of the pre 2021 company's core range "Malt Whisky Collection," Oak Cross has however been discontinued in all markets at the end of 2021.
Despite brands like Ballantine’s, Johnnie Walker and Chivas Regal remaining the best-selling Scotch whisky brands in the world, the blended Scotch category played second fiddle to the more fashionable single malt market in the second half of the 20th century. This remains largely true today, however in recent decades the perception of the blend has improved. The company at the forefront of this is Compass Box, founded in 2000 by John Glaser, a former marketing director for the Johnnie Walker brand. Their core range consists of The Spice Tree, The Peat Monster, Story of the Spaniard, Oak Cross and Hedonism blends, and they regularly produce limited editions as well. The company prides itself on its boundary-pushing approach to its creations, and on occasion, boundary-crossing creations, such as the original Spice Tree in 2005 which was banned by the Scotch Whisky Association for its use of suspended staves in casks. Despite investment from Bacardi in 2015, the company continues to push the envelope and rebel against tradition, most notably in its Scotch Whisky Transparency campaign, launched in 2016 following another disagreement with the SWA, this time about their detailed revealing of the recipes of their whiskies.