Barley wine yeast options

I was hoping to brew up a batch of inaugural barleywine with the intention of laying the bottles down for a year or two for future celebratory/commemorative purposes.

Looking over my yeast options it occurs to me that I might be making some compromises.

All that I have on hand is one packet or muntons, one packet of coopers, and possibly a viable yeast cake of 001.

The yeast cake is from a high gravity ale thats been sitting in secondary for a good 2 months now, I'm not sure if this is even worth trying.

My LHBS carries very little in the yeast department, the best i'd probably be able to do by tuesday is more packets of the yeast i've got now.

I can certainly get a starter going if one of these yeasts will be able to cut it.

001 cake would probably work just fine. I like using the west coast and california ale strains for barley wines.

I used 007 for last year's barleywine. Was fantastic. That's a yeast you don't want to meet in the dark...

What was the gravity of the ale that made the yeast cake?

In general, yeast cake = good for very high gravity brews. But if the original ale was also strong, this can lead to stressed yeast, so you normally want to take the cake from a quicker lower gravity brew.

Also it is the yeast cake from a secondary, not primary.

If I couldn't get any other yeast and I wanted to brew in the next couple of days I'd do a starter with the 001 yeast, that will get it healthy again.

checked my notes, the gravity wasn't as high as I thought, around 1.059. If it was the primary cake i would probably just go for it, but maybe washing and going to a starter is the best way to go.

Seems a bit low for Barleywine. I did one that was 1.10. You should be ok.