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Home The Premier Collection
— Volume IV · MMXXVI Release —

The Premier
Collection.

Three hand-numbered casks. One distillery.

A prestigious line of one-of-a-kind craft whisky expressions, masterminded by Pieter van Helden. Each bottling is small-batch, numbered against its cask, and signed by the distiller — available only from the Helden distillery and a handful of approved outlets.

3
Premier Releases
386
Bottles · Avg. Edition
9 days
2018 Sell-out Time
100%
Hand-Numbered
I
The Helden Single Malt
N° 01 — Premier · Single Cask —

The Helden
Single Malt.

— Vintage MMXXIII · 56% Cask Strength —
"The whisky we wanted to make from the start. Everything else is in service of this bottle."

Our foundational Premier release: a three-year single malt aged in American oak ex-bourbon casks, bottled at cask strength without chill-filtration. The first whisky Pieter laid down at the Helden Distillery in 2020.

Released as a single-cask bottling — every cask different, every batch numbered separately. Currently shipping from Cask N° 14, harvested January MMXXVI.

Age3 Years
ABV56%
CaskEx-Bourbon
fromR 700 View Cask Details
N° 02 · Flagship — Premier · Limited Edition —

The African
Bonfire.

— Vintage MMXVIII · Edition of 386 —
"What woodsmoke would taste like if you could distill it. Seven failed prototypes — and one bottle worth the wait."

The flagship Premier whisky. A 3½-year single grain matured first on French oak ex-bourbon, then finished for six months on South African camel-thorn — a dense indigenous African hardwood prized for centuries as the hottest, longest-burning firewood in southern Africa.

The 2018 vintage sold out in nine days. The 2021 vintage sold out in five. The 2018 release was held back for premium allocation and is now released for sale.

Age3½ Years
Edition386 Bottles
FinishCamel Thorn
R 1,200 Reserve Your Bottle
II
The African Bonfire
III
Rum Cask Single Malt
N° 03 · Sold Out — Premier · Experimental —

Rum Cask
Single Malt.

— Vintage MMXXII · Experimental Bottling —
"An accident, frankly. We had a Caribbean rum cask sitting empty. Five hours later it was full of malt — and twelve months later it changed everything."

An experimental single cask: three-year single malt rested for twelve additional months in a Jamaican rum cask sourced from Worthy Park Estate. Tropical, oily, faintly funky — the most divisive whisky we've ever bottled.

Sold out across all channels in eleven days. We have no plans to repeat it, but if you'd like to be told if we do, join the waitlist.

Age4 Years
FinishWorthy Park
StatusSold Out
R 895 Join the Waitlist
Pieter van Helden
XX
Years of distilling
— Masterminded By —

Pieter van Helden.

"Every Premier release starts with a question I can't answer. The bottle is what's left after we've found it."

Pieter is the founder and lead distiller of Helden. A chemical engineer by training, he started distilling at seventeen — and twenty years later, he leads a team holding five doctorates between them.

Every Premier release is personally distilled, matured, and signed by him. There is no marketing department curating the selection. There is no committee deciding what gets released. There is one man, one warehouse, and a finite number of hand-signed bottles.

P. van Helden
— Founder & Lead Distiller, MMXXVI —
— Premier Allocation —

Join the list.

Premier casks have been known to sell out within hours of release. Our allocation list receives 24–48 hours of advance access before each new bottling goes on public sale.

Join the Allocation List Shop Available Stock
— What Sets Premier Apart —

Three differences.

N° 01

Single Cask, Always

Every Premier bottling comes from a single named cask. Different batches mean genuinely different whiskies.

N° 02

Numbered by Hand

Each bottle is labelled and numbered against its cask, then signed by Pieter before leaving the warehouse.

N° 03

Finite by Design

When the cask is empty, the bottling is over. No second runs, no extended editions, no exceptions.