Lark Tokay 100 showcases “world first” filtration technique

Lark Distillery’s latest Rare Cask Series release, Tokay 100, continues its use of a new filtration technique that the company claims is a world first.

Tokay 100 was finished in barrels that previously held a blend of museum Seppeltsfield Tokay, including a parcel from the 1922 vintage.

“This whisky was developed using Lark’s proprietary and world-first filtration process, an alternative to standard chill filtration, which saw one of three barrels filtered to reduce the viscosity of the liquid, creating more floral notes on the palate,” the media release says.

“Lark then married the whisky with the other two barrels, giving the drop more complexity and ultimately bringing the Tokay to life.”

Lark head distiller Chris Thomson told Drinks Adventures the company stands behind the “world first” claim.

“As far as I know, we’re the only distillery that uses this filtration process to actively change the structure of the whisky,” he said.

“This is a process that’s been with us probably two-and-a-half years. We’ve used it on a couple of different whiskies now, to great success.”

Lark method versus chill filtration

Thomson said the Lark method is very different to chill filtration, which is motivated by aesthetic concerns.

“I’m not too fussed about colour, or the aesthetic appearance of whisky,” he said.

“It’s always about flavour. But also, over my 15 years at Lark, we’ve really come to the conclusion that structure is king.

“The structural experience is how it explodes onto the palate. Flavour is very much second to that.”

Thomson said experimentation by the Lark distilling team had arrived at the new filtration technique, which takes ten hours to complete.

“When you add a lot of fortified wine to a whisky through a finishing process, and then use a filtration process to strip out the right size molecules, it changes the structure of the whisky and makes it brighter,” he said.

“And when it’s put with the unfiltered stuff, it lifts it, so you get to see so much more of it.”

Previous Lark releases that have utilised the technique include Dark Lark, which was 100 per cent comprised of liquid filtered in this manner.

But Thomson declined to divulge the specifics of the as-yet-unnamed process.

“It’s our IP, so we won’t share too many details. We probably should come up with a name for it. I’ll talk to marketing,” he laughed.

Thomson said there were no plans to patent the process – referred to as “proprietary” in the media release – as Archie Rose controversially did with its blending methodology.