No distiller loves losing whisky but it’s an important party of the ageing process.
"Angel’s share" is a term used to describe the portion of whisky that evaporates from casks during the aging process. As whisky matures in wooden barrels, a small amount of liquid is lost to the atmosphere each year. This natural evaporation is known as the angel’s share.
The amount of whisky lost varies depending on the environment. In Scotland, the angel’s share averages about 2% per year, but in warmer climates like Australia, it is significantly higher due to greater heat and humidity. Kinglake loses between 5-10% a year. But whilst this evaporation reduces the volume of whisky it also plays an important role in shaping it’s final character. As whisky evaporates, the concentration of flavours changes, the spirit mellows and is slowly melded with the taste characteristics that the barrel itself provides.
Cask type, warehouse conditions, and climate all influence how much liquid is lost and how flavours develop.
Kinglake Distillery experiments with different barrel sizes and storage conditions, even ageing some barrels in the open air! The result is a beautifully balanced whisky that is well worth the heavy evaporation losses. We make sure those angels deserve their share!
The small size of Kinglake Distillery and our unique 50-acre, off-grid, bush location allows us to use whisky-making methods simply not available to large commercial city-based operations.