Happy New Year! Here’s a quick overview of the highlights of 2018 before we start a new year of (almost) daily whisky reviews.

Best new whiskies in 2018

I think 2018 was a ‘richer’ year than the past two or three years, in the sense that there were more whiskies which surprised me, with great bottlings coming from more sources.

The undisclosed Speyside whiskies have been in my hotlist since 2016 and there have been a couple of great bottlings this year as well, a 1977 and 1973 from Maltbarn and the Vega whisky from North Star...