Review #880 - ImpEx Collection Isle of Raasay 4 Year Single Cask

In June 2026, we attended a whisky tasting centered around the ImpEx Collection, a series of releases from small independent bottler ImpEx Beverages. This company is the importer for a number of spirits brands in the United States, including well-known single malt brands such as Ardnamurchan, GlenAllachie, Kilchoman, and many more.

This tasting covered the 5th edition of the ImpEx Collection, which is being released in 2026. While there are a couple of world whiskies and a rum included, this outturn mainly focuses on Scotch whiskies - that's what we looked at in our session. All of these releases bear markers of high quality: all non-chill filtered, there's no added color, everything is transparent about age and cask type, and everything is bottled at cask strength. There were six samples in this tasting - this review is one of those six.

We've tried quite a few Isle of Raasay single casks at this point, some bottled by the distillery itself, as well as some bottled by independent bottlers. These various releases have been aged in a variety of cask types, and today, we have a new one: a Manzanilla sherry cask, specifically one from Bodega Jose y Miguel Martin, one of the largest sherry cask supplies for the Scotch whisky industry.

Manzanilla sherry is on the dry side of the sherry flavor spectrum - it typically displays notes such as salt or brine, nuttiness, and crisp bright fruit. The Raasay distillate in this bottle is also peated, so we're expecting a sort of dry, smoky tasting experience, especially considering the age: it's just 4 years old.

ImpEx Collection Isle of Raasay 4 Year Single Cask

Scotland/Highland - Single Malt

Price: USD 124 (2026)

Age Statement: 4 Years

Strength: 60.3% ABV

Cask Makeup: Manzanilla sherry cask

Details: Not chill filtered, no color added; cask #19/1195; distilled November 1, 2019; bottled February 28, 2024; 293 bottles

Tasting Methodology: Reviewed 1 time; tasted in a nosing glass, rested 15+ minutes

Nose: Bright and savory, with oily spirit notes and a bit of youth. Musty, sour oranges build, and salty notes come to the forefront. It's a dense nose, one that you have to dig into.

Palate: Very punchy, with tart lemon, salty notes, and some spicy black pepper. Fizzy peat builds, but isn't too strong overall; there are some lighter notes like linen, and it tastes a bit young. The palate grows more savory over time.

Finish: Juicy orange - fruits take more of a center stage now. Some berries, a bit sugary, more citrus, but we also get a strong malted grain note and some salt. Peat lingers but is more mild; it's quite warming and vigorous.

Final Note: We've enjoyed a lot of the Raasay single casks that we've tried so far, and all of them have age statements at 6 years or below, but this specific example felt especially young to us. The sherry cask maturation should in theory help round off a bit of those spicy spirit notes, but the fact that it was a dry sherry meant that the spirity sharpness was just replaced with cask sharpness.

It's an okay dram, but because it also has a price in excess of $100, we think this is probably the bottle from this outturn that we would be most likely to skip - the value isn't there, at least for us.

Our Rating: 6.0 / 10

In the current whisky landscape of increasing prices and variable quality, we've added a value rating to our reviews that relates to the score and the available pricing of each whisky. This roughly equates to a 0-10 scale; no reviews so far have exceeded a score of 10, although it is technically possible for the formula to produce a value rating higher than 10 with a high enough score and low enough price.

Value Rating: 4.81

About Us: We're a husband and wife review team living in the Midwest United States. Generally, our reviews and tasting notes will be a compilation of both of our experiences with a whisky over several tasting sessions.