Edition Spirits Allt-A-Bhannie 1993 (24 year old) 52.9%...

Edition Spirits Inchgower 1997 (20 year old) 56.1%

Bourbon/ Code: EDI0283/ Dist: Jan 1997 Btl: 2017/ Tasted: Nov 2017

A powerfully citric and vibrant nose with balancing castor sugar and barley. With time the oak becomes pleasantly sawdusty and the barley increasingly fragrant. Multi-layered and very impressive.

The palate displays more oak (toffee/ cream) to begin with hints of wood shavings, apricot and honey. The citrus arrives on the middle along with the minerality. The finish is darker than expected with sub-Armagnac-esque fruit, a touch of dark wood spice, liquorice and brown sugar to balance the citrus and bitter oak....

Edition Spirits Tullibardine 1990 (26 year old) 44.4%

Bourbon/ Code: EDI0284/ Dist: Sept 1990 Btl: 2017/ Tasted: Nov 2017

An earthy and woody nose with hints of lime and greengage. The citrus really picks up and the aromas do become a little on the tart side. With time a light cider apple note appears but overall it’s pretty clean and vibrant.

The palate is earthy with hints of old rose petal marc and bitter wood spice. Hints of barley and honey come through and the lime builds on the middle. Tart and citric finish with the old marc notes returning...

Claxton’s ‘The Single Cask’ Cambus 1991 (25 year old) 52.1%...

Never mind Vegas; Montreal is the original Sin City, a nickname it earned during Prohibition when it quenched American thirst with an influx of Canadian whisky thanks to an alleged deal struck between Samuel Bronfman, of Montreal-based Seagram, and Al Capone. Nowadays, Montreal is known for its fantastic wine bars and brewpubs, but its distilling roots are beginning to reemerge. A handful of craft distilleries have opened recently and Sazerac, which at one time operated out of Old Montreal, started distilling there once again this fall. The Old Montreal Distillery will offer visitor tours beginning next spring.

Day One

For...

Just last week, Lux Row Distillers in Bardstown, Kentucky filled its first barrel with new-make spirit. While that whiskey will spend a good couple of years aging, there are plenty of other whiskies to enjoy that are coming out now.

Hot on the heels of Macallan’s special Chinese New Year package , Johnnie Walker has unveiled its annual Lunar New Year Blue Label. Celebrating the Year of the Dog, the bottle’s design features a Shar Pei in an elaborate triptych.

Speaking of Macallan , the distillery is releasing a new single cask bottling in its Fine & Rare Vintage collection....

“There was a fraudster within the Scotch whisky community. We found him, and we’ve taken him out,” says Isabel Graham-Yooll with ice-cool composure. The director of Whisky.Auction in London was instrumental in exposing a forger’s scheme to defraud whisky collectors of tens of thousands of dollars. The one thing collectors and auctioneers are left to wonder: is this just the tip of the iceberg?

“He was the Rudy Kurniawan of whisky and spirits. As we’ve discovered since his arrest, this was a huge crime,” says Graham-Yooll. Kurniawan, an infamous wine counterfeiter, famously duped well-heeled collectors and highly regarded auction houses...

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The problem of fake whisky is very real —and it can cost honest whisky lovers a lot of money, time, and agony. But there are ways to protect yourself from being duped, especially if you can examine the bottle yourself. Here’s how to spot a counterfeit whisky.

Conduct a Strip Search

Counterfeiters often transfer a genuine tax strip from an old wine bottle to cover up a refill. If a tax strip is in place, carefully feel around the neck for sticky patches, which could indicate where the original strip was removed.

Be Level Minded

Fill level is a good...

The whisky industry does invest enormous amounts into detecting fake whisky. However, there’s little to be gained by finding a single fake at auction, or even by taking down a single forger . Efforts are mainly directed against mass volume forgeries being sold in emerging markets. These technologies and tests are helping to thwart whisky forgeries. The Holy Grail remains sealed-bottle testing.

Holograms and UV Security

Invisible photochromic inks appear under UV light and holograms can be verified using smart phones or specialized equipment. Unfortunately, even holograms can be counterfeited, so the mere presence of a holographic image is no...

All whisky drinkers have a story to share, whether it’s a visit to their favourite distillery or perhaps the day they opened a life-changing dram. We’d love to hear your whisky stories and we’ll be publishing our favourites – tell us all about them here . To set the scene, Stuart recalls his first trip to Islay…

Ardbeg is one of a trio of whisky producers on Islay’s south coast, along with Laphroaig and Lagavulin, collectively known as the Kildalton Distilleries

‘Stu, Ardbeg is launching a new whisky. Fancy going up to Islay for a couple of days?’  I remember...

Around 2011 a big parcel of Glenlossie 1975 casks appeared from independent bottlers like The Whisky Agency . Today we’re reviewing one of the early ones, a joint bottling by TWA in Germany and The Nectar in Belgium.

Glenlossie 35 yo 1975 (51,6%, The Whisky Agency & The Nectar 2011, ex-bourbon hogshead, 195 btl.)

Nose: starts waxy, with meadow flowers and hay, as well as some damp oak. majbe wet wool.  Plain malt too. Hints of lemon / vanilla scented candles, walnuts and light tobacco. Very light cinnamon and vanilla. Nice. Mouth: same really, though more gentle than...

Another dram that attracted my attention in the recent Darkness bottlings is this Cragganmore 27 Years , because it is finished in a bespoke 50-litre Fino cask . A great wine but sometimes difficult to pair with whisky.

Cragganmore 27 yo (49,1%, Darkness! 2017, Fino cask #157, 100 btl., 50 cl)

Nose: indeed traces of Fino, with walnut (cake), chalk and traces of fresh bread crusts. But also an underlying sweetness, vanilla, sweet apples and orange honey. Grassy notes. Perhaps a little tobacco. There’s something about this that reminds me of Bunnahabhain. Mouth: fairly dry, with earthy notes,...

Two single cask Kilchoman 2011 today.

One is bourbon matured and bottled for Drinks by the Dram (the whisky sample service from Master of Malt) – the other one is a similar cask that was given a Pedro Ximénez sherry finish and bottled for the 10th anniversary of  Whiskybase.com .

Kilchoman 5 yo 2011 (58,3%, OB for Drinks by the Dram 2017, bourbon cask #524/2011)

Nose: apples and sweet lemons, with relatively gentle ashy smoke and a refreshing hint of eucalyptus. Light toffee and nougat. Vanilla cake. It’s fairly simple, as expected from a young bourbon matured version,...

Bardstown, Kentucky’s newest whiskey distillery quietly filled its first barrel on januari 10th, 2018. Lux Row Distillers , which is located just a few miles from Jim Beam and Heaven Hill , among others, is the first whiskey distillery owned by Luxco , a St. Louis-based spirits company that also sells vodka, gin, tequila, rum, and liqueurs. Luxco’s whiskey brands—which include Ezra Brooks , Rebel Yell , David Nicholson , and Blood Oath —are currently produced for the company at unnamed distilleries.

Although not on the scale of the planned Kentucky Owl Park , which will be located just a...