Introducing...the Smoked Cask

Guest Author: Cooper King Brewer and Distiller, Jamie Thornton

A smoked cask is a style of cask pioneered by Peter Bignell in Tasmania, and recreated here in England with the expertise of Master Cooper Alastair Simms. The process introduces smoky flavour compounds to whisky by smoking the cask itself, rather than the grain.

We broke new ground and launched the UKs first smoked cask expression in the autumn of 2025, under our Cask Series range. If you are new to Cooper King Distillery, our Cask Series is a collection of unique expressions, each celebrating the marriage of our distinctive spirit with individual casks.

For this expression, we collaborated with Alastair to craft something really rather special: a single malt whisky matured in cold-peat-smoked bourbon casks. This has been made with completely un-peated barley - all the smoky flavour (and there’s a lot) has been derived from cold smoking the casks themselves.

What is cold smoking?

Cold smoking is an ancient technique used originally to preserve food by exposing it to wood smoke at low temperatures. In a modern sense, cold smoking is less about preservation and more about flavour. It is particularly used when you want to imbue the food with all the flavours of the smoke, but without cooking it at all - such as with smoked bacon or salmon.

The experimental side of Cooper King Distillery

Alastair built a custom cold-smoker: essentially a small oven with a long chimney flue extending from the top. He then loaded the oven with peat, lit a fire, and let the smoke rise. The flue was long enough such that the smoke inside cooled by the time it reached the end.

He then sat a cask (with the head removed) over the end of the flue and began the smoking process. We selected three first-fill bourbon casks for this experimental run: one left unsmoked as a control, one smoked for one hour, and one smoked for four hours.

After maturing for three years and three months (and regular tasting assessments), we deemed the liquid in each cask mature and ready to marry together. We tasted various blends with different proportions of unsmoked/1 hour/4 hour smoked until we hit on the ratio that we thought gave the best balance. Inside knowledge: the final ratio was 1:1:3/4. What we got was an intensely smoky whisky unlike any other peated expression we’ve encountered.

Looking ahead

We’re particularly excited about this as a potential path forward for the wider whisky industry, as we start to move away from peat due to sustainability concerns. We’ve used peat in this first attempt because it’s a crucial benchmark flavour (and absolutely delicious). In the new year we’re going to start our cask smoking programme in earnest, which will involve experimenting with different fuels in the oven.

The challenge here is to balance the cultural significance and unique flavour of peat in whisky, with the need for environmental sustainability. Peat bogs are a hugely important carbon sink, and cutting the peat from them to burn, puts all that carbon back into the atmosphere.

Although the amount of peat used by the whisky industry globally is a tiny proportion of overall peat usage, it’s still better to leave it in the ground if possible, so it’s time to find out if other fuels could provide similar - or even better - flavours. This has the added benefit of letting us make our whisky even more rooted in this place - it would be fantastic to be able to use local heather cut from the North York Moors, for example.

What to expect?

The whisky has been bottled at 56.1%, without chill-filtration or colouring. Each bottle has been hand-filled and individually numbered. This distinctive release showcases a new direction for us, with a noticeably savoury smoke reminiscent of a wood-fired feast. Our brewer and distiller, Will Dobson, has this to say, “I bloody love how the cold-smoked casks have brought a full spectrum of smouldering aromas, from smoked paprika and chipotle, through to the rich and heavy smoke of an open coal fire.”

If you want to know more head over to the spirit specifics page and explore. The cask series release has now sold out, but you can still try this incredible whisky via our Whisky Expedition Boxes, which contain 100ml bottles of our New-Make Spirit, Pioneer Single Malt and the Smoked Cask.

In the new year we’ll begin smoking new casks, so sign up to our newsletter to be first to hear about new smoked releases in the future. If you think of any innovative local fuels we could use in the cold smoker, drop us an email!