This Loch Lomond 2001 is an exclusive single cask specially bottled for The Whisky Shop by Loch Lomond distillery. It spent 16 years in French Limousin oak.

Loch Lomond 16 yo 2001 (56,5%, OB for The Whisky Shop 2017, Limousin oak cask #16/329-2, 384 btl.)

Nose: starts on green apples, quickly joined by a gristy, peaty side and some oats. Hints of dough, mint and fragrant oak shavings. Soft vanilla. Light musty notes in the background. Reminds me more of the old production than of their reworked Loch Lomond 12 for instance. Mouth: plenty of apples again, pear...

After a few years that Springbank Distillery was quiet on their Hazelburn (Springbank unpeated triple distillation) front, in the last year we’ve been treated with two special/limited editions of Hazelburn in different casks. First came the Hazelburn 9 Year Old that was finished for a few years in Barolo wine casks, which was real good whisky. And now we have a 13 Year Old Hazelburn that was aged in a mix of first fill and refill Oloroso casks. Now, first fill Oloroso casks can be very dominating and with the delicate nature of Hazelburn spirit and with extra four years...

Highland Park has embarked on a new series since oktober last year. 14 (and counting) single casks were released in the new Single Cask Series (so far), and all of them were directed into very specific markets: shops and airport exclusives and one cask was even bottled for the biggest Highland Park Facebook fan group called Highland Park Appreciation Society  (or HPAS as it’s widely known among its members).

I was looking into acquiring a bottle when it got released but getting one was deemed too complicated with no direct shipping route from the shop to me. Thankfully, some HPAS...

Visitors to New York Distilling Company can enjoy this Manhattan at its in-house bar,...

Whiskies are released for all sorts of special occasions, including...

Making homemade ice cream is a bit like mixing a cocktail: it’s an easy way to impress, as long as you follow a good recipe. And like a good cocktail, ice cream can include a kick of whisky, making for a refreshing, delicious spiked frozen treat.

Incorporating whisky into your ice cream is pretty simple, and once you feel confident making a batch of basic bourbon vanilla, you can play around with other flavors, using your favorite cocktails as inspiration. From the Manhattan to the Mint Julep, you’ll wonder why you didn’t add whisky to your ice cream machine sooner....

Peat is one of the most unique, expressive, and occasionally polarizing flavors encountered in whisky. The densely compressed, long-decayed vegetation was traditionally used as a fuel source in rural and remote parts of Scotland—so it was also used to dry barley during the malting process , thus imparting its signature smoky and medicinal aromas and tastes to the core ingredient of scotch. Peat-dried barley contains phenols , a class of chemical compounds that impart what we perceive as peated, smoky flavors. Phenol levels are measured in parts per million, or PPM —it doesn’t take a lot of phenol for us...

This Old Fashioned variation incorporates a touch of absinthe. Created by Nick Bennett of New York City’s...

T here is nothing glamorous about the production of grain whisky. Hammered out on clunky column stills, usually on an industrial scale, using cheaper ingredients like corn, grain whisky is traditionally reserved as filler for blended whiskies, be they scotch, Irish, or Japanese. On its own, grain is the black sheep of the whisky family. But misconceptions be damned.

At its best, the spirit offers supreme drinkability and often a surprising degree of structure and complexity. As the premium malts of the world become frustratingly unattainable, it’s only a matter of time until grain goes gangbusters. For now, at least,...

I’ve always found Father’s Day gift guides kind of pointless. Then, a magical thing happened: I became a father. Hey, majbe dads do need a gift guide! One that includes only things we truly need and love, like whisky. Of course, my young daughter has no money, lacks an acceptable ID, and couldn’t get herself to the liquor store if she wanted (she can’t even walk yet). So perhaps I’ll have to hope someone helps her with this year’s father’s day whisky purchase. (Hint, hint!)

A Whisky For Every Dad

For the new Dad:  WhistlePig Boss Hog 14 year old—$300,...

When we gave...

Our lovely head buyer Dawn Davies knows more about wine than 99% of people on the planet. She’s a Master of Wine (MW), a qualification so tough there are only 350 people in the world allowed to have those initials after their name. If you want to know about wine, talk to Dawn. Dawn held a beginner’s guide to wine tasting at our London shop , an evening packed full of handy hints and tips to wow your friends with at your next dinner party. Here are Dawn’s five tips to look like a wine pro:

Dawn Davies MW

1....

We get a lot of questions at The Whisky Exchange, but the most common is simple: ‘Should I drink this bottle or sell it?’ Several times a day, someone who’s found a bottle hidden in a cupboard or at the back of an off-licence shelf will drop us a line and ask our opinion. It’s a hard question to answer, as we buy loads of old bottles and sell them on our website , but it cuts to the core of one of the things we try to do at The Whisky Exchange: we want people to drink great whisky....

When you think of food and whisky pairings, cheese, chocolate and meat maj come to mind, but cupcakes? Elements of Islay international brand ambassador Mariella Romano hosted a whisky and cupcake evening for our Covent Garden shop ’s Ladies Night tasting.

Mariella Romano from Elements of Islay was our guide for the evening

Believe it or not, those bundles of spongy, iced goodness are a very good match with whisky. Mariella paired a variety of cupcakes with Elements of Islay whiskies, a range of single malts from Islay packaged in laboratory-like bottles. This is what we tried:

Elements of Islay...

When it comes to cocktails, gin is very much the spirit of choice at the moment. There’s a huge range of drinks and recipes out there, but here are three classics to get you started:

Negroni

My favourite gin cocktail and a pre-dinner drink most days in my house. It’s bitter, heavy and complex: just the thing to get my appetite going:

• 1 part gin
• 1 part sweet vermouth
• 1 part Campari (I usually drop this to half a measure as I have a sweet tooth)

Mix the ingredients and stir with ice. Strain into a chilled glass over fresh...

Quite a rare Highland Park 1972 , bottled in Cadenhead ’s Authentic Collection, almost 25 years ago already. Hard to come by, but a bottle with a great reputation.

Highland Park 21 yo 1972 (56,5%, Cadenhead ‘Authentic Collection’ 1994, sherrywood matured)

Nose: starts a bit flat, with lots of dates, honey and caramelized nuts, but it folds open to a wonderfully deep sherry nose. Brighter fruity notes (raspberries, oranges, raisins). Hints of allspice and ginger. Leathery notes and something waxy. Faint heather smoke. A bit of musty cellars. Mouth: rather perfect, heavy sherry, with a superb balance of...

Although I never came around trying their releases, I’ve always been intruiged by the idea of the Lost Distillery Company . Over the centuries so many distilleries have been closed or destroyed, and no production survived. The company researches their production methods, location, historical conditions etc. to get an idea of what their malts could have been like .

There’s no magic in that. No proof or certainty either. You could argue that yeasts, barley, wood and production methods in general have changed so much that it’s impossible to get close to what they must have tasted like back then,...

Loch Lomond 12 Year Old has been aged in three types of cask: bourbon, refill and recharged casks. It is also very lightly peated, but that only comes out in the very end.

Loch Lomond 12 yo (46%, OB 2017)

Nose: quite a subdued start on oats, marmalade, caramel and a metallic note. Sponge cake. Unripe pear and tangy lemon. Spicy / dusty malt. Quite a neutral, reticent spirit (I tried this after the more summery, more open Inchmurrin 12 Years). Mouth: an instant oak feel, hints of brown sugar and yellow apples, citrus and a hint of...