Australia has a new sharply-priced blended whisky to get around with the recent release of Manly Spirits Coastal Stone Xplore Blended Whisky. Retailing at $79 (700ml), the Coastal Stone Xplore joins Starward’s Two-Fold in that rarest of Australian whisky categories – affordable blends.
I popped down to my local liquor chain to buy a bottle of the Xplore and landed it for $70 on special! (Almost fainted when I saw the price.) When I got the bottle home, the first thing I did was make an Xplore Whisky Highball, and I can happily report that it makes one of the most delicious and well-balanced Highballs I’ve tasted with an Australian whisky.
The next day, I got in touch with Manly Spirits Co’s distiller and co-founder David Whittaker to get a few more details on the whisky and to congratulate him on the bold move into the sub-$80 space.
‘The aim is accessibility,’ he told me over the phone. ‘There’s a hell of a lot more people out there who should be able to enjoy quality, local whisky, and that’s only going to happen if you can give them a price point that they can actually afford… We want people to drink it, not just have it sit there on a shelf.’
With Coastal Stone’s Nor’easter Single Malt Whisky currently landing at $99 (700ml), and their Manly Spirits Whisky Highball RTD also finding new audiences, the distillery now has one of the most approachable and compelling Australian whisky ranges in the country.
Coastal Stone Xplore is a marriage of Manly Spirits single malt whisky, matured in both ex-shiraz casks and ex-Bourbon casks, and Manildra wheat spirit matured in house in ex-Bourbon and new American oak casks. The ratio sits at around 40% malt whisky to 60% wheat whisky.
‘Xplore has an approachable flavour profile and an approachable price point, because we want people to explore whisky, to get into whisky,’ Whittaker told me. ‘There’s been a gin boom, so why don’t we now have a whisky boom that goes right into the community?’ Amen to that.
