We do lots of special offers over on The Whisky Exchange website , and every month we choose a new Malt of the Month to do a great deal on. While we’ve been doing this quietly for a while, we’ve decided to make a bit more of a song and dance about it, and are kicking off with a great whisky –  Highland Park 12 year old .

Malt of the Month isn’t about rare and hard-to-find whiskies, but instead the fantastic drams that we sometimes overlook. Highland Park 12, upsettingly, often falls into that category.

Consistently one of the...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/06/highland-park-12-malt-of-the-month/

It’s almost that time of year again – Ardbeg Day, with events happening all around the world .

Each year the distillery releases a limited-edition whisky to commemorate the day (click here for our post on last year’s Ardbog or here for 2012′s Ardbeg Day ).

This year’s bottling, being a World Cup year, is named Auriverdes (the nickname of the Brazilian football team) and I was given the opportunity to speak to the Ardbeg (and Glenmorangie) Director of Distilling, Whisky Creation & Whisky Stocks, Dr Bill Lumsden, about the latest release.

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/05/ardbeg-auriverdes-with-dr-bill-lumsden-liquid-football/

Our sister company, Speciality Drinks Ltd, has unveiled a stylish new look for its Single Malts of Scotland (SMOS) range, as well as – count ‘em – FIVE new bottlings.

The new whiskies comprise a trio from Speyside, one from the Northern Highlands, and one from the Isle of Mull, but the overall spectrum of flavour is vast: one displays fresh, zingy citrus notes, another heads down the waxy, fruity and peppery route, while a third brings dried meat and spicy barbecue notes to the party.

As...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/05/single-malts-of-scotland/

Ears certainly pricked up at TWE HQ when news came in of a new release from The Balvenie . There will be those still mourning the loss of the bourbon-matured 15 Year Old Single Barrel (officially discontinued, but we still have a few bottles left ). Well, cheer up, because we have good news: it’s been replaced by The Single Barrel Sherry Cask 15 Year Old .

This new Balvenie follows on from last year’s Single Barrel First Fill 12 Year Old , which we rather liked . David Stewart (we’re still impressed by the coolness of his job title, ‘Malt...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/05/balvenie-single-barrel-sherry-15/

With the Islay Festival of Malt and Music rapidly approaching, the island’s whiskies have been much on my mind. A little while back, we took delivery a big box of chocolate from the folks at Bowmore, along with instructions to give them away free with their whisky. While we obviously thoroughly endorse such actions, we also made sure we did some quality control, and did some tasting of the chocolate. We are professionals.

In short: it is very nice and we’re giving away a bar with every bottle of Bowmore Darkest 15 year old .

The...

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The Whisky Lounge is rolling into town this maj with their biggest event yet – The London Whisky Weekender. If you’re near London between Friday 16 and Sunday 18 maj, and like whisky, then you should probably come along.

It’s at Oval Space, a venue to the east of the city near to Cambridge Heath station, a few stops from Liverpool Street. It’s a great space and has been a favourite of food and drinks festivals over the past year.

There are four sessions: Friday night from 7pm until midnight, Saturday afternoon from midday until 5pm, Saturday night from 7pm until midnight...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/05/whisky-lounge-london-whisky-weekender/

The Singleton is a worldwide phenomenon, hiding whisky from three different distilleries under one brand, with each appearing in different countries around the world. In the UK all of the readily available Singleton whisky comes from one place: the Dufftown distillery. The 12, 15 and 18 year old expressions have been around for a few years and have become well known, partly through their presence in travel retail, but a pair of new releases have recently appeared on the shelves at TWE:  Singleton Sunray and Tailfire .

Given the brief of creating something new for the Singleton range, Diageo’s product development...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/05/singleton-sunray-and-tailfire-dufftowns-latest/

Around two hours’ drive north-west of Tokyo, near the city of Saitama, is the largely mountainous town of Chichibu and the home of Chichibu distillery – Japan’s youngest. Although Ichiro Akuto only started planning this distillery in 2007, he and his family have a long tradition of producing alcohol and – more recently – whisky in Japan. The Akuto business dates some 400 years, when they started making sake in the Chichibu area. In 1941, Ichiro’s grandfather set up a new headquarters in Hanyu city and gained a whisky-making licence in 1946. It wasn’t until the 1980s, however,...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/04/new-chichibu-hanyu-the-joker/

Regular readers of the blog will know one thing that we’re always keen to learn more about is all things olfaction-related (see Tim’s post last augusti ). So when I was offered to chance to try the new Le Nez du Whisky aroma kit, how could I say no?

French wine expert Jean Lenoir first released Le Nez du Vin, a set of the most common aromas found in wine, in 1981. The success of the original, now translated into more than 10 languages, including Russian and Chinese, led to further forays...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/04/le-nez-du-whisky/

Peat smoke. To many it’s the key flavour in whiskies and for others it’s the reason they don’t drink whisky. While only relatively few whiskies are actually noticeably peaty, it’s become one of the best-known characteristics of Scotch whisky, and distilleries often define themselves by how smoky their spirit is. Some distilleries have been playing with their spirit character over the years, producing whiskies that are a bit different to expected. The latest addition to that club is Knockdhu with its new anCnoc Peaty range:  Rutter  and  Flaughter .

Peat used to be one of the most common heat sources...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/04/ancnoc-peaty-rutter-flaughter-tushkar/

It’s been satisfying to watch the resurgence of gin as a classy, sophisticated spirit, and more so given that this resurgence hasn’t been limited to one particular style or brand – it’s been across the board.

At one end, we have the big players – Gordon’s , Tanqueray , Beefeater , and so on – all much-loved brands dealing in huge volumes. Delve a little deeper, and you’ll find the new era of gin brands, with innovative, bespoke recipes, often made and bottled at a contract distiller – ones to try include Portobello Road , the spicy Opihr , and...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/04/city-of-london-distillery/

I’m a big fan of gin.  Some maj regard pasta and milk as essential household items, but my house feels empty without a bottle or two of gin in it.  Recently I’ve been playing around with different styles and dipped my toes into the world of aged gins and genevers (Dutch gins). So when the chance came up to taste some of Zuidam’s finest aged genevers, and their whiskies, I got rather excited.

For those of you not familiar with Zuidam Distillers, here’s a little background info:

Zuidam Distillers was founded by Fred van Zuidam...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/04/dutch-whisky-and-gin-tasting-the-zuidam-range/

This time last year I was busy sorting out classes for the 2013 Whisky Show, and in my search for interesting ideas, a slightly fuzzy-haired, glazed-eyed version of Tim Forbes (formerly of this parish) told me about a weekend of whisky experimentation with Dave Broom. Apart from the obvious outcome of Tim being a little on the unsteady side, the vast amount of research being done for the new book Dave was writing sounded fascinating. With this in mind I asked Dave if he would be happy introduce some of the attendees of the Whisky Show to the world of...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/04/whisky-manual-dave-broom/

Despite the specific nature of the word ‘Scotch’, the Scotch whisky industry is one with international tendrils. In order to be called Scotch whisky, the distilled spirit has to mature in oak casks for at least three years, with the vast majority of those casks sourced from the USA. Stateside regulations demand that whiskey be matured in a new cask, which leads to a large number of second-hand casks going spare, and the Scotch industry has based its strategy around this continuous supply.

This year, Diageo, the largest drinks company in the world, and Brown-Forman, owner of Jack Daniel’s, have...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/04/scotch-whisky-industry-crisis/

There’s a lot of talk in the whisky world at the moment about Mortlach . They’re not the most mainstream of distilleries, but they are much loved by whisky connoisseurs (or geeks, as I like to call us). However, Diageo have recently discontinued their one regular ongoing bottling, the 16 year old Flora & Fauna release, and have announced a new, premium range that will be arriving in juni:

We’re not going to talk about the new range yet, other than to show the rather blingy bottles in the piccy above, as we’ve not tasted it...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/03/gordon-macphail-mortlach/

Other than whisky (And beer. And vermouth. And noodles. And Lego) one of the biggest loves of my life is coffee. I have a hand grinder that I imported from Japan (well, bought from a Japanese store on Amazon) in the office, buy my beans from a small London based coffee roaster, have used a thermometer and stop watch on occasion to ensure consistency, and use a set of scales to measure the water I need (because it’s more accurate. And a lot more pretentious). While I’ve calmed down slightly in recent times (I don’t use the scales in the office) I’m...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/03/irish-coffee-teeling/

Japanese whisky is proving to be rather popular at the moment and not being one to shy away from providing you with some lovely new whiskies, we were very pleased to have Shinji Fukuyo visit our shop for a very …...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/03/hakushu-yamazaki-distillers-reserve-tasting/

While some drinks categories fire out new releases every few days (I’m looking at you here Gin), some are more steeped in history and produce fewer new entries. One that sees little in the way innovation is vermouth, with the …...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/03/la-quintinye-vermouth-royal/

We all have our favourite styles of whisky, each personal to us. For me, there’s nothing better than a whisky that’s a little bit different, or one I can sit and think about for hours of an evening. For that …...

Läs mer http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2014/02/bruichladdich/

A quick but informative post today – tickets to The Whisky Show are now on sale. Click on the alarmingly large picture below to head over to the show website, or read on below for a few details: As the …...

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