Okay, this isn’t funny. It’s now mid-March and I think we’ve seen the sun twice. Still, its good whisky-drinking weather, so perfect for a whisky event or two…

So much to bring you up to speed with, including our next raft of tastings around the UK, plus our Brighton, Edinburgh, Leeds and London Whisky Festivals. We have a new review up on the website of the fabulous Balcones, a quick review here of the Newcastle Whisky Festival and more! Read-on…

With the amazingly well-received Japan Vs Scotland tastings reaching their climax in York, Leeds and Sheffield this week and next, we usher in our next series of sitting down dramanigans. We have been very lucky people indeed in securing the prestigious whiskies from the SMWS – Scotch Malt Whisky Society – for our April/May program. If you haven’t experienced the delights of the SMWS previously, you are in for a real treat. ‘The Society’, as it is known by its fans and customers, is now in its 30th year and is without doubt the most prolific independent bottler in the world. In order to keep world peace and avoid embarrassing scenarios, each bottle is labelled with numerical codes and funky, taste-related names. This only adds to the mystery and intrigue and appeals to the ‘inner-geek’ in us all! The best news of all is that all of their bottlings are single cask and cask strength… nuff said I reckon. Check out the tasting dates below and get booking – these are going to sell-out quick!

With our first festival of the year under our belt – see Newcastle review below – we are preparing with all guns blazing for a rapid succession of shows in Brighton, Edinburgh, London and Leeds. That’s a lot of miles and even more whisky to organise. We also need to organise the most important thing, which is YOU! All of these festivals are now up on the website with tickets still available for all. We have a cheeky little early-bird in operation now for Leeds and a few still left for London, so get your skates on as these won’t last long.

SUNDAY 19TH MAY 2013
We are very excited to finally announce a project – as part of the London Whisky Festival – that we have been working on for months, if not years. We wanted to find a way of combining our main interests of whisky, music and food and we think we’ve finally nailed it. We don’t want to give too much away as we would like it to be a revelation on the day, but we can tell you it will involve tasting whiskies from the stands as per a ‘normal festival’, but interspersed with short bursts of live music, tied in with blending. It should prove to be a really interesting and eye-opening day with plenty of chances to experience something new. We’ve also kept the ticket price as low as possible at £25 to encourage you out on a Sunday afternoon…

The 5th Newcastle Whisky Festival on Saturday 9th March was a vibrant and exciting event with punters enjoying the whiskies from new and old exhibitors. As always we ran our ‘Dram of the Day’ and ‘Stand of the Day’ competitions, with Diageo performing a clean sweep in both categories. Kilchoman and Whisky Broker also proved popular with silvers and Brora 30yo and Balcones filled the last medal slots with well-deserved bronzes. ‘Under the Counter Drams’ included Talisker 25yo, Benromach 30yo, Brora 30yo, Highland Park Thor, Glen Grant 1974 and more. I think we can safely say it was the best year yet going by customer and exhibitor feedback and we look forward to next year.

Hopefully this gives you a taste of what to expect in the coming months at our other festivals around the country…

As promised above, here are the dates for the upcoming SMWS series of tastings. Tickets are only £20 and include your drams. Each tasting starts at 7pm and lasts up to two hours. Just click on the venue and date you are interested in. Simples!

DATES & VENUES

23RD APRIL LONDON
24TH APRIL LONDON
25TH APRIL BRIGHTON
 2ND MAY DURHAM
3RD MAY NEWCASTLE
4TH MAY MANCHESTER
22ND MAY LEEDS
24TH MAY YORK

15th-18th June & 19th-22nd June 2013

As you may have seen from our last newsletter, we are heading to Islay in June and taking some of you with us!

We are taking 20 lucky customers over the course of 2 three-night trips on a ‘back-stage’ tour of the island and its distilleries. We are staying in a beautiful farmhouse and cottage and we will be ferried around in relative luxury from place to place. Now, if you thought you were too late to sign up, you’re not. We have 4 places left on the 1st trip and 2 places on the 2nd. Tickets are £300 and include travel from Glasgow, accommodation on the island and all distillery tours.

If you’re interested have a look at the pages on the website, send us an email or call us on 01904 410841.

We look forward to seeing you soon! Slainte, Eddie, Amanda & Joe