A glass of Tawny may not necessarily inspire the most glamorous of drinking experiences – but Australian whisky darlings, Starward Whisky is hoping to change all that. The Melbourne distillery is arguing that the pair do indeed go together and can be enjoyed not only as a wind-down tipple at the end of the night, but all night.

Starward, known for its playful innovations, recently launched their latest unique offering, their first-ever Tawny cask whisky. Of course, this borrows from Starward’s already tried and true premise of using local wine barrels to mature their whisky, making them the robust, flavourful and well-loved whisky brand they are today.

In this instance, instead of the Shiraz found in bottles of brown like the Two-Fold or the Cabernet of the Nova, Starward let their single-malt mature in Tawny barrels from Yalumba, these barrels are smaller at only 100L – so the flavour profile is punchy (and maybe somewhat punch-like).

The end result is a whisky left with remnant fruity flavours of the barrels, think notes of raisin, brown sugar, fig and dried orange – all seemingly perfectly and conspicuously timed for the Christmas season.

Sam Slaney, Starward’s head distiller explains, “with some of the world’s best expressions of Tawny coming from within a days’ drive of the Starward Distillery and the anticipation of Starward Project releases, we are excited to be adding the limited-edition Tawny cask to the Starward portfolio.”

Standing a 500ml per bottle, there are 4000 made, Starwards largest limited-edition release thus far, with a recommended retail price of $119 a pop.

www.starward.com.au