We are holding a Burns Supper at Abbot House in Dunfermline, Fife. We will have whisky tasting, live music, ceilidh dancing and of course a three course meal – including haggis, neeps and tatties, with complimentary dram!
LAST PLACES FOR A SOCIETY BURNS NIGHT
Around the UK
Featuring a sneak preview of five remarkable drams from our February Outturn and supper to celebrate Burns!
28 Queen Street
A relaxed Burns night with a mix of traditional entertainment, Society drams and fine food with three drams matched to a three course dinner.
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, The Vaults, 87 Giles Street, Leith EH6 6BZ Contact: sales@smws.com or call 0131 555 2929 (Mon-Fri 9am-4.45pm). Visit the Society at here for membership information This is your chance to join and to take advantage of their great offers!
Spot the SMWS bottles in this amusing You Tube video
Investors in People is an UK organisation which provides a framework to organisations to be assessed on its’ people strategies. Assessment is done through a series of interviews directly with employees at all levels, across the business in order to ascertain feedback on the strategies in place. On this basis, an award is granted. The Glenmorangie Company is delighted that in November 2014 we have been upgraded from a Silver award to a Gold award. The award is a respected stamp of quality worldwide, which shows our employees that we care; it shows our customers that we are different and it shows our competitors that we’ve got the edge. Gold Accreditation shows we are a truly cutting-edge organisation that is operating at the very highest levels of people management practice using Investors in People to drive our business forward.
Only the top 6% of companies in Scotland have achieved the Gold level of accreditation.
K&L Wine Merchants
http://www.klwines.com
Phone: 877-KLWines (toll free 877-559-4637)
Email: wine@klwines.com
San Francisco, Redwood City, Hollywood CA
Whisky Live DC 2015
March 7th, 2015 6:00pm-10:00pm
Location: Grand Hyatt Washington 1000 H Street N.W., Washington, DC 20001 Website and Ticket Booking: https://www.whiskylivena.com/event/whisky-live-new-york-2015/
VIP Tickets are $129, and include entrance to Whisky Live New York at 6:00pm plus Glencairn souvenir tasting glass, show guide, full dinner buffet, and live entertainment.
Whisky Live is the international celebration of whisky, bringing all the whiskies of the world together under one roof. Whisky Live prides itself on bringing together the finest whiskies, great food and a range of education and entertainment to make learning about whisky both fun and stimulating. Whether you are a whisky enthusiast, an uninitiated newcomer or just looking for a day out that offers you something different, Whisky Live has something for everyone.
Whisky Live gives you the unique opportunity to sample the greatest whiskies in the world, whilst mingling with the producers and distillers, marketers and visitor center staff, all under one roof. In addition to learning about the world of whisky, you will be able to sample rare and sought-after whiskies and meet the stars of the industry.
Japan – Single Malt Scotch
United States – Bourbon and Rye
K&L Wine Merchants
http://www.klwines.com
Phone: 877-KLWines (toll free 877-559-4637)
Email: wine@klwines.com
San Francisco, Redwood City, Hollywood CA
HUNT FOR TREASURE AND FIND YOUR LIQUID GOLD
Join us on an epic adventure. Don your fedora and enter the gloomy cave. Mind the tarantulas! Duck under the beam of light. Swing over the gaping pit. Step carefully around the booby trapped paving. And there it is, glowing softly: a dram of liquid gold. We’ve found a few iconic bottlings good enough to stuff in your satchel and run – before the giant boulder is upon you…
Light & delicate
123.12
Treasure hunt
12 years old
Refill ex-bourbon hogshead
Only 38 left!
£46.10
Old & dignified
39.96
The Sultan’s Treasure Chest
29 years old
Refill ex-bourbon hogshead
Only 16 left!
£131.10
Light & delicate
24.128
Posh ladies on the prom!
29 years old
Refill ex-bourbon hogshead
Only 22 left!
£255.00
Spicy & dry
9.88
A heart-starter
25 years old
Refill ex-sherry butt
Only 25 left!
£99.00
Lightly peated
3.235
The happy camping holiday
26 years old
Refill ex-bourbon barrel
Only 27 left!
£114.20
Browse New Outturn
Browse All Bottlings
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, The Vaults, 87 Giles Street, Leith EH6 6BZ Contact: sales@smws.com or call 0131 555 2929 (Mon-Fri 9am-4.45pm). Visit the Society at here for membership information This is your chance to join and to take advantage of their great offers!
Spot the SMWS bottles in this amusing You Tube video
The (now) traditional TWE Blog Review of the Year
Starting traditions is easy. Firstly, you declare that something is a tradition, and then you do it more than once. Bingo: tradition. On that note, here’s the (now) traditional TWE Blog Review of the Year!
It is traditional to feature a picture of Colin Dunn in our yearly round-up
While we at TWE HQ hide away in west London, occasionally glancing out of the window at Wembley Stadium, it seems that the folks in our London Bridge shop do real work. Throughout 2014, they hosted the usual cracking range of tastings, covering the whole world of spirits. We kicked off the year with the much-anticipated Diageo Special Releases tasting, with Colin Dunn, Diageo’s brand ambassador and part-time Johnnie Walker impersonator. From there we jumped around the world, including stops in Japan for the launch of the Suntory Distiller’s Editions, the Netherlands to try the Zuidam range, and Scotland for some treats from Springbank. Shop stalwart Duncan Ross ran us through his whisky heroes in his Magnificent Seven tasting and we even hosted the launch of what would become Whisky Advocate Magazine’s Japanese Whisky of the Year – Hanyu Joker. And to top it all, we ended the year with the selection and crowning of our Spirit and Whisky of the Year 2014-15. On that note…
Coming out on top were Cocchi Vermouth di Torino (yes, we know it’s not a spirit) and Glendronach Revival 15 Year Old, two very deserving winners. You can find out more about them on our Spirit of the Year and Whisky of the Year pages.
Photoshopping Rocky’s face into pictures has also become a tradition
We’ve been prolific here on the blog, with new editor Stu kicking Rocky and me into shape. From our most successful April Fool’s Day post yet (both in number of hits and number of people who emailed us panic stricken having believed it), to distillery profiles from Rocky (our resident traveller) of Bruichladdich, Benromach, Glen Moray, Mackmyra and Hven, and a series on ‘sherry’ casks from me, we’ve covered a wide range of topics.
On the way Rocky has been accused of being a tool of the Kummel marketing board, Stu got to combine football with drinks and I got be geeky about grain whisky. All in all, a productive year, even if our Christmas post revealed too much about the inner workings of our minds.
The whisky year is chock full of happenings, and we got involved throughout the year. Despite running the shops at Whisky Live London and around the country with The Whisky Lounge’s shows, we also had a little bit of time in October to throw a little shindig of our own: The Whisky Show 2014.
Lots of stuff happened at the show. Here is some of it. Bonus points if you spot yourself
Our biggest show yet, with 2,500 people through the doors over the weekend, we had great whisky, great food, and lots of fantastic people on both sides of the counter. Our headline masterclasses this year were the best yet, and you can read all about them here on the blog: Glenfiddich, Gordon & MacPhail, I Did It My Way, and Aurora Brorealis.
Shiny…
The biggest thing of the year for us was the launch of our new website. Many months in development, it finally broke free of the testing server in mid-October and has been presenting a much prettier Whisky Exchange to everyone who visits. As ever, comments and suggestions are gratefully received – just drop us a line through the site.
Some great whiskies have appeared this year. The expected new Glenmorangie Private Collection entry, Companta, shot off the shelf thanks to the reputation of 2013′s Ealanta, Jim Murray’s World Whisky of the Year 2013 (97.5pts), despite bearing little resemblance to its predecessor – Jim gave Companta a 74 in this year’s Whisky Bible. Ardbeg continued their run of popular special releases with both the World-Cup-alluding Auriverdes and the revived Supernova 2014. Kininvie’s single malt finally hit the general market to a burst of apathy from the whisky geeks and a flurry of activity that meant it sold out immediately; Bowmore Devil’s Casks 2 broke the impressive sales records of the first edition; and Bruichladdich produced Octomore 6.3 and Port Charlotte 2008, both using locally grown barley and in the case of the former, peated to the highest levels yet seen.
Many, many tasty things…
Our sister company Speciality Drinks relaunched the Single Malts of Scotland range, with a new look and a raft of new whiskies, as well as a pair of Elements of Islay releases, including four bottles approved by a certain bearded whisky blogger (me).
As usual, Diageo picked up a lot of the new whisky limelight thanks to three launches: the Special Releases, the revamped Mortlach range and Haig Club. All three caused much chatter on the internet, with the Beckham-backed Haig Club getting both endorsement from new whisky drinkers and abuse from the connoisseurs.
We have a whole page of exclusives over on the main site, but we’ve had a few standouts through the year. We kicked off 2014 with a pair of Gordon & MacPhail exclusives that were previewed at The Whisky Show 2013: A Glentauchers and a Ledaig. They sold out quickly, but we now have an excellent G&M Caol Ila instead.
The Whisky Show was greeted by the usual flurry of special show bottlings, with a heavily sherried Clynelish garnering most praise – it looked amazing and tasted even better. We also had a pair of Karuizawas up for grabs, with show guests queuing from early in the morning to be in with a chance of getting one. If you didn’t get one, don’t fret – there are still more Karuizawas to come. Watch this space…
2014 also marked our 15th anniversary, with thewhiskyexchange.com coming online at the end of 1999. So far we have released three special editions: a heavily sherried Balblair 2000, a heavily sherried Arran 1996 and a heavily sherried Glen Garioch 1973. You may notice a theme…
There are a few things on the horizon that I can mention and even more that I can’t. In January we should see details of The Whisky Show 2015 appearing and some special Japanese whiskies. Our Shop tastings start again shortly and more wisdom will be presented here on the blog throughout the year. Here’s to 2015 and whatever it brings.
Colonel E.H. Taylor, Jr. Small Batch Bottled in Bond Straight Kentucky Bourbon 750ml ($39.99)
This bourbon, bottled in bond, was aged for seven years in the famous Colonel Taylor’s warehouse built in 1881. It is the latest from the sought-after E.H. Taylor line from Buffalo Trace Distillery. Soft and subtle, this is easily the most approachable and affordable of the recent Taylor releases. The Bottled in Bond Act of 1897 means that the bourbon come from barrels all produced at one distillery, in a single season, and then stored in a bonded warehouse for at least four years before being bottled at 100 proof.
Sarah Covey | K&L Staff Member | Review Date: January 08, 2015
Fans of soft, supple, easy-sipping bourbon should snap this puppy up immediately. Sweet corn, vanilla, spice and light caramel with a long, lingering finish. You will absolutely want to have this on your bar for sipping on the rocks, or as a killer component in any bourbon cocktail. It’s awesome!
David Driscoll | K&L Staff Member | Review Date: January 03, 2015
The E.H. Taylor series is an interesting side project from the Buffalo Trace distillery portfolio (Eagle Rare, Weller, Elmer T Lee, Pappy, etc) offering a drier, less sweet profile than what many of us expect from Bourbon. For me, the Taylor Small Batch 100 proof is the most intriguing of the series; truly a grainy and evocative Bourbon that goes from oak, to oil, to sweet corn, and then back to a dry grainy finish. For me personally, the whiskey is great on the rocks, but really shines in a Manhattan or Old Fashioned. The 50% helps bump up the flavor, allowing it to hold its own with the added sweetness, and the drier profile doesn’t add too much extra sugar. The oak and corn flavors are really well balanced as well, creating a back and forth of sweet vanilla and baking spices that goes on forever even after you drink it down. It’s a fun change of pace from the standard Bourbon fare and a chance to really delve deep into the complexity that Bourbon can offer. There’s a lot going on in this whiskey; perhaps more than you’re really looking for. Each time I taste it I find something I didn’t taste the previous time. It’s almost like the Boigneires Armagnac equivalent; that’s a brandy that cuts out all the sweetness and gets right down to the core flavor. It’s the Bourbon version of that.
K&L Wine Merchants
http://www.klwines.com
Phone: 877-KLWines (toll free 877-559-4637)
Email: wine@klwines.com
San Francisco, Redwood City, Hollywood CA
5007 Underwood Ave, Omaha NE 68132 402.553.9501 dundeedell.com
Rye Tasting
Pat has been picking out a lot of really tasty Rye Whiskies today!! The selection looks amazing and I’m really excited for this tasting because the Dell has some really impressive Rye Whiskies!!
When: Sunday, January 18
Time: 4 pm
Cost: $40 per person
