Greetings!

I hope you had a spectacular holidays with your family, loved ones and friends, and this second day of 2013 finds you recovering and ready to “get back at it”.

As I started to consider whiskies for this first email of the year, I found myself also reconnecting with our vision for the ForWhiskeyLovers experience: What we offer you, our members. Or put another way: How we at FWL hope you, our members will think of us when you hear our name.

This New Year reset also caused reflection on some of what we’ve achieved in the last year or two, including:
• Bringing on Managing Editor Caroline Dewar and our world-renown team of contributing editors

• Launching our Private Tasting Expeditions
• Kicking the Whisky Explorers club up a few notches with help from the chaps at Masters of Malt
• Relaunching The Drammie Awards, thereby placing the power of “recognition” back in the hands of whiskey consumers.
• Winning the Icons of Whisky Best Online Retailer for 2012
It quickly became evident that two words were threaded through everything we do: Quality & Value. At every touch point where you experience FWL, we want you to have a high quality experience, that provides real value.

Oh…and it should be fun!

And so having reconnected with Quality and Value (over-laid with “fun”), I quickly arrived at one of my favorite – always on my bar – whiskies for this weeks email: Ardbeg 10 YO Islay Whisky.

The Ardbeg distillery was established in 1815, but was mothballed after running into some financial difficulties the distillery closed in 1981 and it was not until 1989 that distillation resumed, although on a very small scale. After closing again in 1996, then owners Allied Domecq put the distillery up for sale.

Bought in 1997 by Glenmorangie Co it was was, at last, restored to its former grandeur. Its chief water source, Loch Uigeadail (pronounced ‘Oog-a-dal’), or ‘dark and mysterious place’ in Gaelic, became the inspiration for a bottling launched in 2003 under the same name.

Ardbeg Uigeadail was later Jim Murray’s 2009 World Whisky of the Year, a title held previously by Ardbeg’s ten year-old. Ardbeg has become known for its rich, peated whiskies, very easily identifiable by their fullness of body and perfect harmony of flavor.

Ardbeg Ten Years Old is non chill-filtered and has a strength of 46% ABV, thus retaining maximum flavor, at the same time giving more body and added depth. It is revered around the world as the peatiest, smokiest, most complex single malt of them all. Yet it does not flaunt the peat; rather it gives way to the natural sweetness of the malt to produce a whisky of perfect balance.

So we are thrilled to offer you a bottle of Ardbeg 10YO Islay Whiskey, for $54.95/ bottle…and if the quality of Ardbeg 10 isn’t enough (and it darn well should be!), to assure “value” we are including a 50mL bottle of Ardbeg’s acclaimed Uigeadail with your order, FREE!

Next week: The 2013 Drammie Awards.

Until next week…I wish you high spirits!

Doug Stone
Founder
ForWhiskeyLovers.com

ARDBEG 10YO ISLAY SINGLE MALT & UIGEADAIL 50ML