Louis Roederer, producer of Cristal, is one of the last remaining family-owned Champagne houses

There are certain drinks that become icons. One of them is Cristal , Louis Roederer ’s flagship Champagne , and we are delighted to announce that 2006 Cristal is our Champagne of the Moment for juli, with £15 off our normal price.

Cristal was created in 1876 by royal demand. Tsar Alexander II of Russia asked Louis Roederer to reserve their best wines for him, and Roederer duly obliged. To distinguish the bottle from others, it was made in a transparent lead-crystal bottle, from where Cristal takes...

At this time of year, there’s one spirit on our minds here at TWE – rum . With Independence Day of Jamaica next Thursday, it gives us a chance to highlight our comprehensive range, starting with today – Black Tot Day . At 11am on this day in 1970, sailors in the British Royal Navy were given the daily rum ration (aka the daily tot) for the last time after a tradition that had lasted since 1655. The occasion was marked with a sombre ceremony, recreated by Gosling’s in 2011:

To celebrate, we’re running a terrific prize draw; simply buy...

The earth has made another circuit around the sun. In my usually rainy bit of it, it’s been hot, and atmosphere-wise we’re about as close we’re going to get to Mexico. As such, it is fitting that this Friday, 24 juli, is National Tequila Day – while I suspect whoever made up the holiday didn’t consider international weather conditions, it’s worked out well for us for the past few years.

We’ve had some new faces appear in the office recently and the blog team has been using this as an excuse to rant about drinks educating them about the wonders of the drinking...

A lot of distilleries talk about their history, but there are few still in operation who can point to generations of family ownership. One of the best known distilling families in that exclusive club are the Grants of Glenfarclas, owners of the distillery for 150 years. To celebrate this milestone, they have released a new whisky, the cryptically named Glenfarclas £511.19s.0d.

John and George Grant: the first and second generations of the family

The story behind the name is actually simple: On 8 juni 1865, 29 years after its founding, John Grant bought Glenfarclas for the princely sum of £511.19s.0d. A...

Our Summer Gin Cocktail Kit contains everything you need to personalise your gin and tonic

The sun is doing its best to peek out from behind the clouds, and in preparation for a glorious augusti, we’ve put together a great little cocktail kit that lets you personalise your drinks – very cool!

Our Summer Gin Cocktail Kit includes all the goodies you need to make the perfect gin and tonic:

• a 70cl bottle of Tanqueray No.10 Gin
• four 20cl bottles of Fever-Tree Mediterranean Tonic Water
• a pack of Originario Botanicals
• a 10cl bottle of Angostura Bitters
• four Tanqueray goblets

Once...

Over the past few years we’ve been working closely with some of the world’s best independent bottlers to release whiskies exclusive to The Whisky Exchange. We’ve produced a range of great bottlings , but we’ve returned to one producer more than the rest – Signatory Vintage.

Casks and casks and casks and casks and…

Andrew Symington and his team have an incredible range of casks in their warehouses at Edradour, and despite having seen inside a few years ago , I’m still impressed by the whiskies that they’ve given us the opportunity to have as exclusives.

This time we have...

Hibiki Harmony includes whiskies from Yamazaki (left) and Hakushu (right) distilleries

Japanese whisky is enjoying its moment in the sun, but its new-found popularity is putting a strain on stock levels, and as such, non-age-statement whiskies are the inevitable consequence. Hibiki ’s answer is Harmony , a blend of more than 10 malt and grain whiskies.

The whiskies are from Suntory’s Yamazaki and Hakushu distilleries, and also the Chita grain distillery, which acts as the dashi (‘broth’) of the blend, says the company. A number of different types of cask are used, too, including mizunara, American white oak and sherry...

Gin has seen a remarkable rise over the past few years, with new brands appearing almost every week. One of the first was No.3 Gin , introduced by historic wine and spirit merchant (and independent bottler) Berry Bros & Rudd in 2010.

Each bottle of No.3 Gin was originally wrapped in retro-map tissue paper, showing the brand’s spiritual home – No.3 St James’s Street in London.

Berrys’ found the perfect producer for its gin in De Kuyper , both being family-owned firms founded in the 1690s. The respected liqueur specialist is situated in the Dutch gin capital of Schiedam (also home to...

With summer in the air here at TWE HQ, we think it’s time for a new competition. We’re big Highland Park fans and we’ve got a very special bottle to give away: Highland Park 1976 Orcadian Vintage.

The Highland Park Orcadian Vintages are an impressive range of whiskies, very limited releases that are increasingly hard to find. They range from the 1964, one of the oldest officially bottled Highland Parks ever released, through to the 1976, bottled at a comparatively sprightly 35 years old back at the end of 2011.

I was very fortunate enough to have a taste of...

The past few weeks have been hot in the UK, with some of the highest temperatures recorded down the road from TWE HQ. Fortunately for us, the air conditioning in the office is particularly effective, but we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to use the temperature as an excuse for a summery cocktail. Today’s tall drink: the forebodingly named Dark ‘n’ Stormy.

This barely sneaks into the cocktail category for me – three ingredients or more: cocktail; two ingredients: mixed drink – only doing so as I consider the garnish to be an essential inclusion. It’s simple, easy to make...

The Islay Festival maj have finished weeks ago, but juli’s Malt of the Month has been chosen to help those of us who went relive the visit and to give those who couldn’t go a slice of Islay.

It’s Laphroaig’s 200th anniversary in 2015 and they’re celebrating throughout the year with events and special releases. We’ve decided to join in for juli, knocking £5 off bottles of their flagship whisky: Laphroaig 10 Year Old .

I’m not very good at hiding my obsession with whisky from the distillery, and I love the fruity, briny, smoky, medicinal flavour combination that they get into...

It’s been long overdue but sherry is starting to come back into fashion. No longer purely seen as ‘granny’s tipple’, producers have been looking at ways to give a contemporary twist to this historic and traditional fortified wine. One of the bodegas at the forefront of the revival is González Byass with a range of unfiltered sherries, including Tio Pepe En Rama .

Casks once used for González Byass’ range of sherries

Launched in 2010, En Rama is an annual spring release of fino sherry comprised of the best 160 casks from the bodega’s historic Rebollo and Constancia soleras, used for...

The now-retired stills at Tobermory

Every so often, a truly historic bottling comes along. One recent release that deserves that accolade is Ledaig Dùsgadh 42 Year Old .

The Isle of Mull’s sole distillery was reopened under the Ledaig name in 1972 after four decades of silence. Today known as Tobermory , the distillery’s former name is reserved for the peated whisky it produces.

500 bottles of Dùsgadh (Gaelic for ‘reawakening’) have been released, comprised of some of the first spirit to run from the then-new stills. It has been aged in a variety of casks, including the final 12...

If you’ve met Bruichladdich’s Jim McEwan, or even heard tales of him, then you’ll know that he’s not a man to do things by halves. His final Islay Festival tasting at the end of last month packed more than 400 people into the distillery’s warehouse, with crowd-surfing the only way to get out once it had started, and he spent the rest of the day surrounded by crowds wanting to get a photo.

Jim McEwan’s final toast. For now…

Now that his retirement is less than a month away, the last releases of his tenure as Bruichladdich’s all-round whisky guy are appearing....

A slight change for juni’s Spirit of the Month. Previous months have seen gin and vodka take centre stage, but this time round, we’ve gone for an American whiskey from Michter’s .

Michter’s US*1 Unblended American Whiskey  doesn’t have any grain whiskey in it, but can’t call itself a bourbon as the spirit is not aged in new oak – a stipulation for all US bourbon. Instead, the liquid is aged in ‘bourbon-soaked’ barrels, and the result is a very sweet and fruity whiskey, with plenty of toffee and butterscotch flavours.

MICHTER’S US*1 UNBLENDED AMERICAN WHISKEY, 41.7%

Nose : Pronounced...

The Talisker tasting line-up

Talisker whisky is fiery, peppery and smoky, but does it work with food? We hosted our first Talisker-themed food-pairing night five years ago at the TWE shop, so a sequel was long overdue. Diageo brand ambassador Colin Dunn was on hosting duties, and began by announcing that of all of the company’s 28 whisky distilleries, Talisker offered the ‘most breadth of flavour’. So, on to the tasting…

The pairings

A few drops of Talisker 57′ North poured on Jersey oysters worked a treat

Talisker 57° North with Jersey oysters An intriguing start, given the high strength...

Cocktail bitters have seen a resurgence over the past decade, with craft producers such as Bittermens and Fee Brothers entering the fray. One man has been at the forefront since he cut his teeth at New York’s Rainbow Room in the late 1980s – Dale DeGroff, aka ‘King Cocktail’. In collaboration with absinthe legend and founder of Jade , Ted Breaux, he created DeGroff’s Pimento Bitters , made at the Combier distillery in France’s Loire Valley.

Originally produced as a replacement for one of DeGroff’s most-used bitters (but at the time had been discontinued), Pimento Dram , Pimento Bitters is based on...

The Glenlivet has decided to discontinue its 12 Year Old in the UK and Germany

After much hesitation and the odd denial here and there, it’s official: The Glenlivet 12 Year Old will soon no longer be sold in the UK. Instead, Glenlivet will be focusing attention on its no-age-statement Founder’s Reserve bottling, but here and in Germany, the 12 Year Old will be discontinued.

Here at TWE, we think that the 12 Year Old will be much missed, particularly given that for many drinkers, the expression would have been their first foray into the world of single Maltwhisky. The...

We launched Malt of the Month  last year to highlight our favourite whiskies, with Spirit of the Month  following in april. Such was the success, and to celebrate the start of summer, we’re adding sparkling wine to our regular recommendations – say hello to our first Champagne of the Moment :  R de Ruinart , at £3 off.

Ruinart was the first Champagne house, founded by Nicolas Ruinart (nephew of Dom Ruinart , friend of Dom Pérignon . Producer of the original rosé Champagne in 1764 ( Ruinart Rosé ), the house continues to be at the forefront of the category more than...

Whisky has long been a favourite drink in Germany, but it took until 2002 for the first native single malt to be released. At that point there were only three distilleries producing whisky (today there are hundreds), of which one was the Hammerschmiede distillery in the Harz mountains, producer of The Glen Els .

The Hammerschmiede distillery is nestled between the buildings on the left and the trees behind

The company was founded in 1985, when the Buchholz family opened a restaurant in a 13th-century blacksmith’s workshop (today used for whisky maturation), producing a herbal liqueur. In the late 1990s,...