From Whiskey Wash:

Jos A. Magnus & Co. is a relatively well known craft distillery out of the Washington D.C. area, highlighted primarily for finishing sourced whiskey in exotic barrels that once held sherry, cognac or armagnac. It is one of the projects as well that legendary master blender Nancy Fraley is involved in. Under this distillery exists, among other brands, the Murray Hill Club whiskey. Batch 3 of it has now been announced, and it takes a rather fascinating direction from previous releases.

The new Jos A. Magnus Murray Hill Club Special Release (Batch 3), according to those behind, is a marked departure from the first batch that blended 18 and 11-year-old bourbon with 9-year-old light whiskey (the second batch was finished in Pineau des Charentes casks). Instead what Fraley and company have cooked up this time is a blend of 10 to 20 year old bourbons that were finished in malt and cider casks first used by Potter’s Craft Cider, Buskey Cider and Virginia Distillery Company to create what’s described as “a unique and complex interplay of aromas and textures.”

More specifically, according to information provided to us by the distillery, the barrels were “first filled at the Virginia cideries of Potter’s Craft Cider and Buskey Cider. The casks spent a further 8 to 12 months at Virginia Distillery Company as finishing casks for their 100% barley malt blend of Scottish and Virginia whiskies. As expected, the barrels possessed an abundance of single malt barley notes and still retained a fair amount of apple aromas, skin tannins, and residual yeast from the original cider fills.” The blended bourbons then finished for 8 months in these casks.

The Murray Hill label, for those unfamiliar with it, was said to first have been introduced in 1892 and is reportedly “one of the finest whiskeys” to come to the market prior to Prohibition. What is in the bottle now “was created using blending techniques” from the Magnus era. Previous blends have netted some notable awards at various spirits competitions in recent years.