Traditionally, Scotch whisky was matured either in Bourbon casks or Sherry casks. Couple of decades ago, some marketing guru might have advised to leading Single Malt distilleries to use Bourbon casks for the first period of the maturation, then Sherry casks for the last couple of years … then label the whisky as Sherry Cask Finish. To be honest, I don’t know who was the very first to play this card, but did it right. Since then distilleries marketed several variations of cask finish whiskies: Port wood finish, Madeira wood finish, Burgundy wood finish. But have you ever tasted a Cognac Cask Finish whisky? No? No wonder, because Cognac is hardly available for cask finishes. The reason is simple. Cognac itself is a trademark. Therefore Cognac producers do not intend to let anyone else to use and place the word ’Cognac’ on any bottle of spirits, except real Cognac from the French region of Cognac. So, even if any of the Scottish distilleries tried to finish its Scotch Malt whisky in ex-Cognac casks, they need to be tricky to be allowed to place the word “Cognac” onto their whisky label. Isle of Arran does many variations of cask finish whiskies. The way they do it with Cognac is that they set a deal with Hardy Cognac, USA.