I’ve been intrigued by Glen Ord for years. Back in the dim and distant past, I became aware of the distillery when I was asked to write about them in 1001 Whiskies to Try Before You Die  – I tried a few drams and really liked them. However, it’s only more recently that I’ve managed to visit and learn about more about the distillery first-hand.

Situated a short drive away from Inverness – and easily accessible by train for those like me who shouldn’t be in control of a motor vehicle – on the edge of the village of Muir of Ord, the distillery...

There aren’t many distilleries that have universal appeal. Some people adore rich, sherried whiskies; other people despise them. Some love lean, medicinal styles; others run a mile. But there is one whisky distillery that gets praise from all quarters: Lagavulin .

Lagavulin distillery, as viewed from Lagavulin Bay

Part of the big-hitting trio of distilleries on Islay ’s southern coast, Lagavulin celebrates its 200th anniversary this year, and is about to launch a special limited-edition bottling: Lagavulin 8 Year Old . This new bottling honours the work of whisky writer Alfred Barnard, who visited Lagavulin in the 1880s: ‘No prettier...

A lot of people have a soft spot for spiced rum , particularly at this time of year. The combination of rich rum and sweet spice works a treat, particularly served with a mixer or made into a cocktail. One of our favourites at TWE is Foursquare , which goes heavy on the spice but light – thankfully – on the vanilla.

It’s made in Barbados, in the same distillery as Doorly’s and the older rums from  St Nicholas Abbey , and is made without the addition of sugar-cane syrup, which explains its elegance and lightness of touch. This is what...

Our Covent Garden shop opened at the end of last year, and now that we’ve settled in, we’re ready to start our latest new thing – a regular, end-of-the-month tasting evening.

Tomorrow, Thursday 25 februari , is the inaugural event and we’re going international. We’ll have whisky from France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, India, Japan, Sweden and Taiwan, as well as representatives from each company on hand to tell you all about their drams.

Presenting their whiskies will be:

• Amrut – India
• Armorik – France
• Kavalan  – Taiwan
• Mackmyra – Sweden
• The New Zealand Whisky Company – New Zealand
• Togouchi – Japan...

It’s the end of februari, which means it’s London Beer Week. After 2015’s successful inaugural year, the Drinkup.London team are back with another week of beer-related shenanigans. There are reduced priced drinks for those with London Beer Week wristbands and a whole slew of events running throughout the week.

We’ve had a dig through the bar and event list and pulled out our choices for the week – here’s what we recommend:

THE LONDON BEER WEEK HUB AT THE OLD TRUMAN BREWERY

The ideal place to start your evening – the centre of London Beer Week activity for 2016. You...

Selecting and bottling casks of whisky takes a lot longer than people think. This time last year – well, 11-and-a-bit months ago – Billy Leighton, master blender at Midleton distillery in Ireland, stopped by with some whiskey for us to try. Rather than keep it all to ourselves, we shared it with you: our loyal customers. Billy hosted a tasting and at the end everyone tried the whiskeys and voted for their favourites – you can read all about it in Stu’s blog post .

We chose two whiskeys, the first of which is now up on our website: a hugely fruity...

We like the Elements of Islay  here at The Whisky Exchange blog. Admittedly, they are bottled by our sister company and selected by Oliver Chilton , occasional writer here and developer of The Whisky Exchange’s own exclusive bottlings , but fortunately they are also very good. The latest release in the range has just hit our shelves and it’s a departure from the series’ usual approach – it’s a blended malt. Introducing Elements of Islay Peat .

Oliver Chilton: master of the elements

So far, the Elements of Islay have all been small batches or single casks of single Maltwhisky,...

I am often shocked by a lack of culture from my TWE Blog colleagues. While I was happy to lend them a copy of Dude Where’s My Car – the finest film ever made – to ensure they understand most of the shibby that I say, I was recently dismajed by the complete lack of knowledge of one of the greatest films in existence by both Rocky and Stu : they hadn’t seen Zoolander .

Still some of Ben Stiller’s best work

My comments on my difficulties with turning left , eugooglies and the perils of being really, really, really ridiculously good looking...

Behind the scenes, The Whisky Exchange is a very international company. We have people from all over the world throughout the business, from Spanish web developers to Romanian photographers, Portuguese designers, Finnish spirits advisers and even the occasional Scot. Among the variety of nationalities, we have a strong contingent from Nepal and when we heard about the devastating earthquakes in the country last year, we decided to do something. Cue a charity whisky bottling – Amrut Everest .

Originally launched at The Whisky Exchange Whisky Show 2015 , Everest is a collaboration between TWE and Amrut. It’s a single cask which...

Our yearly tasting calendar is a varied list of events, taking in everything from whisky to spirits and liqueurs, with even an occasional foray into the world of fizzy wine – tickets to our next tasting, Growers’ Champagne with Dawn Davies MW are on sale now. However, there’s one that’s become a regular fixture and is anticipated through the year – The 2015 Diageo Special Releases with brand ambassador Colin Dunn.

Colin took a while to choose which box to pose with, but in the end went for the Port Ellen

In short, the Special Releases are a yearly collection of limited...

Something different for februari’s Spirit of the Month – a liqueur. We’ve chosen a classic Italian almond-flavoured example: Salizá Amaretto Veneziano from Bepi Tosolini .

Amaretto is an almond-flavoured liqueur which is predominantly made in Italy. For many years, the best-selling brand has been one that hails from ( di )Saronno in Lombardy; however this is not made with real almonds, and while that maj be great news for those with nut allergies, Salizá is made with crushed almonds, staying true to amaretto’s origins.

Bepi Tosolini founded his company, originally producing grappa, in 1943

Bepi Tosolini founded the eponymous company...

Next up on our Of The Month list for februari is Champagne – this month’s top fizz is from Charles Heidsieck .

Charles Heidsieck, the original Champagne Charlie

I admit I didn’t think I knew anything about Charles Heidsieck before I started looking into the company for the Champagne of the Month page. Very quickly I realised that I knew more about them than I thought thanks to a single phrase: Champagne Charlie.

Charles-Camille Heidsieck came from a family of winemakers. They, the company now known as Piper-Heidsieck , started in 1785, and having learned the trade, Charles headed out on his own in...

Craigellachie Distillery is located in Speyside

A new month means a great whisky deal to tell you about, and for februari, we’re spreading the word about Craigellachie 13 Year Old – and we’ve knocked £4 off the price.

Distillery bottlings of Craigellachie were few and far between until 2014, but then three new age-statement releases appeared for the first time: the 13 Year Old , a 17 Year Old and a 23 Year Old . All three received critical acclaim and all three share Craigellachie’s robust, meaty character.

I visited Craigellachie two years ago and the Dewar’s team were proud...

As I have mentioned before, I’m a beer fan. Annoyingly, we’ve not had many on the website, with our small selection consisting of a pair of great Scottish brewers – Harviestoun and Windswept – and a few beers from Finland’s Teerenpeli . However, we’ve just added a stack of new breweries from closer to our home – we’re now stocking a large range of London beer.

London’s seen an explosion in the number of beer makers over the past five years. In 2010, the first London Brewers Alliance festival was held in a smallish room above Brew Wharf near London Bridge,...

Launched in 2010, Glenmorangie’s Private Edition series has given a home to the experiments Dr Bill Lumsden, Glenmorangie’s director of distilling and whisky creation, had been carrying out on a smaller scale for many years. Starting with what Dr Bill described as a ‘safe bet’, Sonnalta was the first incarnation, finished in Pedro Ximénez casks. These were followed by increasingly experimental cask types: Finealta (lightly peated whisky aged in a combination of sherry and virgin-oak casks), Artein (Italian red wine), Ealanta (virgin oak) and Companta (French red wine), while last year’s Tùsail veering away from the usual theme, with the...

This evening is one of the most important in the Scottish whisky drinking calendar: Burns Night. It’s important enough that I’ve written about it for three of the past four years here on the blog ( 2012 , 2014 , 2015 ) and if it were not for the cold I am currently suffering from, I’d be filling my face with haggis and whisky tonight.

The wild haggis in its native habitat, as captured on film by StaraBlazkova

While I normally try and recommend something that isn’t whisky to accompany your dinner, this time I’m going to leave it to you: drink...

Australian whisky is on the up. This is far from a new thing, with Sullivans Cove French Oak picking up the World’s Best Whisky award at the World Whiskies Awards in 2014 and more distilleries springing up all the time. Despite the success, it’s still difficult to find Australian drams on the shelves on the UK. However, we have had a new one arrive recently – Starward from the New World Whisky Distillery.

I first heard about the whisky a couple of years ago, and more than anything, the bottle design grabbed me. I’m a sucker for beautiful labels and Starward ticks all...

When it comes to competitions, the past year has been great for The Whisky Exchange – we’ve picked up both the Digital Entrepreneur Small E-Commerce Business of the Year award and the International Wine and Spirits Competition Online Retailer of the Year award .

We’re now up for another award and need your help. And when I say ‘we’, I mean The Whisky Exchange Blog – we’ve entered the UK Blog Awards .

If you’re a fan of the blog and think we deserve to win in the food and drink category, please click on the banner below and vote...

Continuing our Laphroaig theme from yesterday, we’ve got a great TWE exclusive to share – Laphroaig 1997 bottled by Berry Brothers .

However, we also have an admission to make: we’ve been selling it at the wrong price.

Unfortunately, due to some bad calculator work, we’ve had the bottle on the website for £40 less than we should have, and now we’ve noticed we’ve had to put it up to its proper price of £150 – still a lot less than than the €259 one of its sister casks is going for elsewhere

We launched the Laphroaig in december, although there were a few...

Laphroaig’s birthday celebrations have drawn to a close. It was their 200th, so we don’t begrudge them a year of partying, especially as it has featured a few special releases. Things kicked off with the 15 Year Old back in april , and continued with an excellent Cairdeas bottling at the Islay Festival, a Friends-of-Laphroaig-only 21-year-old and a travel-retail-exclusive 16-year-old. They’ve even made one of the best whisky adverts we’ve seen:

But they did one final celebratory release, saving the best for last – Laphroaig 32 Year Old , as previewed at The Whisky Show’s sold-out 200 Years of Peat masterclass .

Like many...