St Patrick’s Day approaches – 17 mars. It’s a day of celebration, but what is it actually celebrating? We’ve written about St Patrick’s Day for years here on The Whisky Exchange Blog, with tales of whiskey , Irish cream , poteen and more , but never really looked into who Patrick himself was, and why we celebrate his life. Time for a history lesson.

Who was St Patrick?

To start, Patrick (or Patricius as he referred to himself in his writing) was born in Great Britain rather than Ireland. Various places in England, Scotland and Wales have taken credit for...

The closing of Rosebank has increasingly been recognised as one of the biggest losses in Scotland’s whisky history. However, thanks to the current huge growth in Scotch whisky, a new chapter for the cult, closed distillery is opening.

The Lowlands

The Lowlands are a strange region when it comes to Scotch whisky. For years they have been sparsely populated, but in the boom times of the Victorian era they were an ideal location for for legal distillers – good transport links to Glasgow and Edinburgh, allowing grain to come in and whisky go out with ease, but with fewer glens...

This weekend sees the return of Whisky Show: Old & Rare to the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow. As usual, there’ll be stacks of excellent whiskies to try, from interesting old blends to ancient American whiskies and some of the finest single malts ever bottled.

See the 2019 dram list >

The latest addition to the ranks – which already includes a 1930s bottling of non-peaty Laphroaig, Black Bowmore, our 10th-anniversary 1967-vintage Karuizawa (it’s our 20th birthday this year…), and an Old Orkney from Stromness bottled around 1910 – is the show bottling: The Whisky Show:Old & Rare 2019  Ardbeg...

Here we are again, once more dipping our toes into the rich, bubbling pool of silliness provided to us by the wilder elements within the world of drinks.

Looking for something… distinctive, this Valentine’s Day? Well, whether you’re proposing to your partner or just having a night in with your bestie, we’ve got bottles aplenty to introduce a little interest to your evening.

Fallen Angel Spiced Rum

There are certain drinks which, as long as they continue to look as they do, are doomed to appear in every Novelty Bottles post I might write to which they are even...

Valentine’s Day  is fast approaching, and since all things pink have become the symbol of the season, we thought we’d choose some of our favourite fizzes.

Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé Champagne

This is a perennial favourite, and one that will never disappoint. The house was founded in 1818, when Nicolas François Billecart married Elisabeth Salmon, and the family have continued to make wine for seven generations. This was the first rosé I listed by the glass when I was a sommelier, and it is still the rosé I go back to time and time again.

Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé  has  a beautiful...

Over the last two decades the rise in popularity of rosé, in all forms, has been phenomenal. Now everywhere you turn drinks are turning pink – pink gin, pink wine, pink sparkling. I have even seen the odd pink whisky…

So why has this colour become so popular and how has its fortune changed?

Pink bubbles begin to rise

At the end of the 90s, no City boy would be seen dead drinking bubbly rosé. It was all about claret and good Burgundy, with not a drop of pink in sight. Pink Champagne was seen as inferior, and at the...

A new release in the dumpy bottles (which means 30+ years old in the Connoisseurs Choice range): Mortlach 1988 from a refill sherry hogshead. As good as the previous Mortlach from Gordon & MacPhail ? Let’s hope so.

Mortlach 30 yo 1988 (48,8%, Gordon & MacPhail ‘Connoisseurs Choice’ 2018, refill American oak sherry hogshead #4839, 129 btl.)

Nose: intriguing mix of subtle fruits (overripe melon and apples, a little redcurrant), flowers (freesia), lemon meringue and linseed oil. Whiffs of damp chalk. Beehive notes. Crushed leaves, bits of moss…  Mouth: quite punchy, with honey and something vaguely fruity, but...

That Boutique-y Whisky Company has a series of blended malts , numbered according to their recipe.

In this case they say it’s a teaspooned malt , a single malt to which a small amount of Maltwhisky from another distillery is added. Let’s dive in and check it out.

Blended Malt No.1 18 yo (47,3%, That Boutique-y Whisky Co. 2018, Batch #3, 1049 btl.)

Nose: bright and fruity in a slightly Irish way. Juicy pears, nectarines, unripe greengages. Floral honey, as well as honeysuckle. Meadows in spring. Fresh and attractive like a lemonade. Mouth: simple pleasures. All on...

The third edition of Octomore 10 Year Old . Whisky distilled from Scottish grown Optic barley, matured in different casks:

• 37% first-fill Port pipes
• 31% first-fill Cognac barrels
• 20% second-fill bourbon barrels
• 12% matured consecutively in first-fill American barrels (3 years), virgin oak (2 years) and second-fill American whiskey barrels (6 years)

Octomore 10 yo 2008 (56,8%, OB 2018, 3rd edition, 167 ppm, 12.000 btl.)

Nose: rich and powerful. Sweet tobacco with campfire ashes, tarry ropes and shoe polish. Behind this there are vanilla biscuits, chamois leather and sweetened black tea. Plenty of oats. Stewed apples and hints...

The second installment of the Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ghost & Rare series, this time composed around Port Ellen .

Of course the amount of Port Ellen that went into this is small. In an interview Jim Beveridge said they only added the level necessary to make the blend smoky, and anyone who know smokiness in blends know that you don’t need a lot of smoke in there to have that overt smokiness.

Anwyay this Ghost & Rare release includes Port Ellen but also grain whisky from the ‘ghost distilleries’ Caledonian and Carsebridge , as well as whisky from Mortlach,...

Ardbeg 19 Years Traigh Bhan

Ardbeg is working on a new 19 year-old expression called Ardbeg Traigh Bhan , named after a beach on Islay. It is matured in American oak and Oloroso sherry casks and bottled at 46.2% ABV. Expect smoky pineapple and chilli chocolate . Expect a high price as well, I guess.

Benromach Heritage 1972 / Benromach Heritage 1977

With the previous Benromach 1978 still on the shelves, two new vintage releases are announced:

• Benromach Heritage 1972 cask #4471 , 46yo, 55.7% ABV, 75 bottles, around € 1750 each. Already available from The Whisky Barrel...

You don’t get too many Ardmore bottlings matured in sherry casks, I suppose Asta Morris must have bought it as young spirit and decided to go for a sherry cask himself.

This is just 5 years old . When asked about the young age of this whisky, Bert simply answered because it wouldn’t make sense to age it longer and that’s probably the only right answer. Looking at the colour this must have been a very active (deeply charred?) cask.

Ardmore 5 yo 2013 (56,4%, Asta Morris 2019, sherry butt, 211 btl.)

Nose: lots of dark candy sugar,...

Grindlay’s bottled this 20 year single malt from the Benrinnes distillery after it was drawn from one cask (ex-bourbon probably) which was laid down in 1997 .

Scotland Grindlay Ltd was founded in 2015 by George Grindlay. They have a blend called Dalriada and a series of single malts / single casks, but other than that little information is available, not even a company website.

Benrinnes 20 yo 1997 (56,4%, Grindlay’s Selection 2018, cask #895, 200 btl.)

Nose: very fresh and aromatic, with fruit salad and a slightly floral edge. Oranges (and marmalade), peaches and melons. Bright lime....

Glen Moray Fired Oak is a 10 year-old experimental whisky matured in bourbon barrels and then finished in heavily charred virgin oak casks . The least you can say is that Glen Moray is doing their best to bring out interesting experiments, like the Glen Moray Cider Cask Project before.

The official tasting notes mention amplified notes of vanilla, spice and smoky wood, so I expect it to be closer to American bourbon whiskey perhaps?

Glen Moray 10 yo Fired Oak (40%, OB 2018)

Nose: sweet fruity notes to the fore here, lots of apple notes with a...

Let us call a spade a spade: Mortlach failed in their april 2014 relaunch . The quality was uninspired and the bottles didn’t sell because the asking price was way too high.

The new range went back to 70 cl bottles, which are also priced much more reasonably (the 18 Years was € 350 when counting 70 cl, the new 16 Years is well under € 100) and I guess nothing really stands in their way now.

The Mortlach 16 Years is matured in a mix of first-fill and refill sherry casks. Of course there was the respected 16 Years...

We had a bad experience with Jura The Sound recently. We don’t give up, so let’s try the reworked Jura 10 Year Old and see if this is better. No points for the lousy 40% ABV strength though.

Jura 10 Years was already launched in the US in 2017 but didn’t make it to Europe until the 2018 core range overhaul . It is matured in American oak barrels and finished in Oloroso sherry casks.

Jura 10 yo (40%, OB 2018)

Nose: better than The Sound, but not much. Gristy notes, hay, a little wet newspaper and a...

This is the fourth release in the popular Local Barley series from Springbank . One more and we’ll have a full set:

• Springbank Local Barley 16 Years (2016)
• Springbank Local Barley 11 Years (2017)
• Springbank Local Barley 10 Years (2017)
• Springbank Local Barley 9 Years (2018)

The latest version is produced with Optic barley from High Cattadale Farm and matured in a mix of 80% bourbon casks and 20% sherry casks.

Springbank 9 yo 2009 ‘Local Barley’ (57,7%, OB 2018, 9700 btl.)

Nose: good but just like the 10 Years this is young and therefore a little less...

Macallan Edition N°5

The Macallan Edition N°5 celebrates the natural colour of Macallan bottlings. This inspired the renowned Pantone Color Institute to create a unique and ‘exquisitely complex’ shade for the label.

We don’t know what colour this will be. Macallan has been smart: they erased some text on the preview label and completely desaturated it. I’m guessing it will be a shade of red, or majbe brown. What do think it will be?

In any case: bottled at 48.5% ABV and available later this year. Macallan Edition No.4 is still available from The Whisky Exchange .

Ardbeg...