Four casks, four maturation philosophies, one question: how much does the wood decide? Rare Find’s Summer 2026 collection answers it four different ways, from the restraint of a first-fill bourbon barrel to the full red-wine soak of a Napa barrique, then doubles down with a matched pair of oloroso quarter casks that prove the same wood says very different things depending on what spirit goes in.
Rare Find, the single-cask arm of Edinburgh’s Gleann Mòr Spirits, has built its name on bottling individual casks at their natural best rather than chasing a house flavour. This release, themed around “the art of contrast”, is live from July 2026 through UK stockists. There are 785 bottles in total across the four casks, all at natural cask strength, natural colour and non-chill filtered.
What’s in the Rare Find Summer 2026 collection
The line-up spans Highland, Speyside and Islay, and the casks were chosen to sit against each other rather than blend into a single mood.
A 12-year-old Blair Athol from a first-fill ex-bourbon barrel opens things at the gentle end, leaning on the distillery’s honeyed Highland character without much cask interference. Next to it sits a 14-year-old Deanston given the opposite treatment: full maturation in a first-fill Napa Valley red wine barrique, where the distillery’s waxy, cereal-led spirit takes on dark fruit and spice.
The other two are a deliberate pairing. Both are 9 years old, both finished in first-fill oloroso sherry seasoned quarter casks, and they exist to show how the same active wood behaves over different spirit. A Speyside Dalmunach turns bright and fruity. A mystery Islay turns smoky, briny and sherried at once.
James Zorab, Rare Find’s whisky supply manager, frames the whole set around how carefully chosen wood reveals different sides of a distillery’s character, which is the polite version of what every single-cask buyer already suspects: the cask is doing at least half the talking.
The four casks at a glance
| Blair Athol 12 | Deanston 14 | Dalmunach 9 | Mystery Islay 9 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Region | Highland | Highland | Speyside | Islay |
| ABV | 56.1% | 57.3% | 60.6% | 57.9% |
| Cask | 1st fill ex-bourbon barrel | 1st fill Napa red wine barrique | 1st fill oloroso quarter cask | 1st fill oloroso quarter cask |
| Cask no. | 448 | 300659 | 11131 | 11140 |
| Outturn | 205 bottles | 268 bottles | 126 bottles | 186 bottles |
| Profile | Honeyed, orchard fruit | Berried, wine-led, spiced | Bright, fruity, sherried | Smoke, brine, dried fruit |
Tasting notes
All notes below are supplied by Rare Find. We have not yet tasted the collection, so there are no scores here. We will add a verdict if review samples come our way.
Blair Athol 12 Year Old
Nose: buttery shortbread, golden syrup, baked apples, vanilla, a hint of white pepper.
Palate:rich and syrupy, orchard fruits, pastry, iced buns, a touch of lemon.
Finish: long, brown-sugar apples, subtle oak.
ABV:56.1% | Cask: 1st fill ex-bourbon barrel, cask 448 | Outturn: 205 bottles
Deanston 14 Year Old
Nose: balsamic strawberries, fresh raspberries, buttery flapjack, cinnamon, ginger.
Palate: ripe berries, plums, sultanas, golden syrup, peppery spice.
Finish: long, fruity, drying cask spice.
ABV: 57.3% | Cask: 1st fill Napa Valley red wine barrique, cask 300659 | Outturn: 268 bottles
Dalmunach 9 Year Old
Nose: lemon sponge, vanilla custard, toffee, hedgerow berries, ginger.
Palate: fresh apples, pears, strawberries, raspberries, redcurrants, toffee, chocolate walnut, gingerbread.
Finish: long, fruity, developing citrus.
ABV: 60.6% | Cask: 1st fill oloroso sherry quarter cask, 17-month finish, cask 11131 | Outturn: 126 bottles
Mystery Islay 9 Year Old
Nose: briny, medicinal, lemon zest, maritime smoke, olive, sea salt, malt.
Palate: creamy toffee, berries, smoke, iodine, citrus, nuts, mineral peat.
Finish: long, driftwood, smoked lemon, salt.
ABV: 57.9% | Cask: 1st fill oloroso sherry quarter cask, 18-month finish, cask 11140 | Outturn: 186 bottles
Why the quarter-cask pair is the interesting bit
The Blair Athol and Deanston are the easy sells: a clean honeyed Highlander for people who want to taste the distillery, and a wine-cask Deanston for people who want the wood to take over. Both are familiar moves done well.
The two oloroso quarter casks are where the theme actually earns its name. A quarter cask is roughly a quarter the size of a standard barrel, so the spirit touches far more wood per litre and matures faster. Rare Find has put two very different spirits through the same kind of cask for similar lengths of time, 17 months on the Dalmunach and 18 on the Islay, and let the results diverge.
The Dalmunach stays bright. Young Speyside spirit plus active sherry tends towards jammy fruit and bakery sweetness, and the notes read exactly that way. The Islay goes somewhere else entirely. Peat, coastal salt and oloroso pulling against each other is one of the more reliably good combinations in whisky, and at 9 years old it should still have plenty of spirit character fighting back against the sherry. For anyone who likes sherried Islay but doesn’t want to pay sherried-Islay big-brand prices, this is the bottle to watch.
Who makes these whiskies
Blair Athol is a Highland distillery in Pitlochry, best known as the heart of the Bell’s blend, with a rich, slightly meaty house style that a clean bourbon cask flatters well. Deanston sits in a converted cotton mill on the River Teith and makes a waxy, cereal-driven spirit that takes happily to heavy cask treatment. Dalmunach is one of Speyside’s newest distilleries, built in 2014 on the old Imperial site near Carron, producing a light and fruit-forward malt. The Islay distillery is left unnamed, which is standard practice when the source distillery doesn’t licence its name to independent bottlers.
Rare Find itself is the single-cask label of Gleann Mòr Spirits Co. in Edinburgh, which has been releasing individually selected casks across Scotland’s regions for years, consistently bottled at cask strength, natural colour and without chill filtration.
Price and where to buy
Rare Find has not published RRPs for the Summer 2026 casks at the time of writing, and the collection goes live in July 2026. Single casks like these are sold through Rare Find’s stockist network rather than direct, so pricing will be set by retailers. Royal Mile Whiskies in Edinburgh is a long-standing Rare Find stockist and a reliable first place to check, alongside the stockist finder on Rare Find’s own site.
For international readers: independent single-cask bottlings at these outturns sell out unevenly across markets, and not every stockist ships everywhere. If you want one of the smaller casks, the 126-bottle Dalmunach in particular, set an alert with a retailer that ships to your country rather than waiting for it to appear on a shelf near you.
Is it worth tracking down?
For collectors of sherried Islay and anyone who enjoys comparing how one cask type behaves across different spirits, the quarter-cask pair is the reason to pay attention here. Buy both the Dalmunach and the mystery Islay if you can, and taste them side by side, that is the whole point of the release. The Blair Athol is the safe everyday cask-strength dram of the set, and the Deanston is for the wine-cask crowd. We will update this piece with tasting scores if we get to the whiskies ourselves.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Rare Find Summer 2026 collection? It is a four-bottle single-cask release from Rare Find, the independent bottling label of Edinburgh’s Gleann Mòr Spirits. The line-up covers a Blair Athol 12, a Deanston 14, a Dalmunach 9 and a mystery Islay 9, themed around contrasting maturation styles. All four are cask strength, natural colour and non-chill filtered, live from July 2026.
What is the difference between the four Rare Find Summer 2026 whiskies? Each uses a different maturation approach. The Blair Athol 12 is first-fill ex-bourbon, the Deanston 14 is fully matured in a Napa red wine barrique, and the Dalmunach 9 and mystery Islay 9 are both finished in first-fill oloroso sherry quarter casks. The Dalmunach is bright and fruity, the Islay smoky, briny and sherried.
How much does the Rare Find Summer 2026 collection cost? Rare Find had not published official RRPs at the time of writing, and the collection releases in July 2026. As single-cask bottlings, prices are set by individual stockists rather than the bottler. Check Rare Find’s stockist network, including Royal Mile Whiskies, once the bottles go on sale.
Where can I buy the Rare Find Summer 2026 whiskies? Through Rare Find’s UK stockist network from July 2026, not direct from the bottler. Royal Mile Whiskies in Edinburgh stocks Rare Find regularly. International buyers should use a stockist that ships to their country, as outturns are small (126 to 268 bottles per cask) and sell out at different speeds in different markets.
Are the Rare Find Summer 2026 whiskies cask strength? Yes. All four are bottled at natural cask strength with no added colour and no chill filtration, in keeping with every Rare Find release. ABVs range from 56.1% on the Blair Athol to 60.6% on the Dalmunach, which is the most concentrated of the set thanks to its small, active quarter cask.
What is Rare Find whisky known for? Rare Find is the single-cask label of Gleann Mòr Spirits Co. in Edinburgh. It specialises in individually selected casks from across Scotland’s whisky regions, always bottled at cask strength, natural colour and without chill filtration, with the emphasis on showcasing one distinctive cask rather than building a consistent house style.
Leave a Reply