This, their latest limited edition, released summer 2025, shows that those 3 wood types aren’t the only things they’re looking after. Aged for 4 years exclusively in ex-Marsala wine barriques, this offers something noticeably different from The Draam (always a good sign). Still lightly peated, but taking a step up in ABV, this whisky leans towards more obvious dark fruits, but the effects of the peat are diminished.

Notes: 👃🏻Lots of red berry, cut wood, alcohol fire, icing sugar, melon, salty earthy toffee 👄Black grape, toffee yeast, sweet plum.

I suppose technically this hand-labelled bottle doesn’t count as one of the Na Sia releases, and I certainly can’t see the cask number on their website. But it is a single cask release of one of the components of The Draam, and it was presented as a Na Sia, and to this writer, that seems to make sense.

Most of the ex-Rye casks are Woodford Reserve, though there are some Sagamore Spirit from mostly before they were acquired by the Italian company behind Disaronno.

It is really quite interesting to have the opportunity to pull apart a recipe and try examples of the core components. There are striking differences tasting this compared to the previous Chinkapin bottle. Of course, there’s an element of the single cask variability at play, but those casks are materially different, where the spirit entering them is the same. Although, fun tidbit from Scott, the distillery runs on an alternating 3 month cycle of peated on, peated off, and they don’t work too hard between to remove all traces of peat. Instead, the first 3 casks or so each change over are marked as intermediate – so not all spirit at Raasay is created equal.

Notes: 👃🏻Creamy vanilla soda, pepper, pear, jelly beans, cereal, bready 👄Oatmeal stout, milk bottle sweets, grassy, white pepper.

Early on in the night, I asked Scott the awful question of whether he had a favourite. Whether it was something we had in our lineup or a bottle he’d sampled elsewhere, I didn’t mind. I fully recognise it’s a pretty difficult question to answer as, for me at least, it often depends on mood, and even then, it can be hard to pick out a favourite as opposed to just one of the things you really love.

This series, not necessarily this third release, was his answer. The Dùn Cana range starts life as a single cask ex-Rye aged whisky, which is then recasked into PX and Oloroso quarter casks. That’s for about 3 years in the ex-Rye and 8 months in the sherry quarter casks; there’s a lot of info on the Raasay website, and I do love distillery transparency.

Final fun fact of the review, courtesy of Scott on the night: Alasdair Day, one co-founder of Isle of Raasay distillery, inherited meticulously kept logbooks from his great-grandfather, which detail the recipes for the blends his company released in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among these recipes is a note to add some sherry for colour. That’s not something a Scotch producer can do directly today, but this bottle certainly does get a whack of colour from sherry.

Notes: 👃🏻Lemon/sherry drizzle cake, milk choc, buttery herby sausage roll, (brazil) nut 👄 Dirty cola, tea, under-ripe raspberry, creamy sherry.