New Season Malts – September

The first releases of the new season are about to start arriving this week. We start with the New Longrow Red 12 matured in Pinot Noir wine cask 52.9% Vol 9000 bottles and the new Springbank 12 year old 53.8% Vol 9000 bottles.

A NOTE FROM US ON REVIEWS AND COLLECTOR ITEMS

Before I go into more detail about the new products, I want to touch on the reviews and points given for some products that can cause a little mayhem from time to time.

As you know a number of web sites offer reviews on single malt’s, some that we bottle along with many more from other bottlers or companies big and small. After the Littlemill 24 review, things got a little crazy as people rushed to find a bottle or 3 of the now rare bottling we had stock of since June.

I understand that some of you might not be aware of the latest releases until the on-line review has been released and as a result you miss the chance of savoring the latest malt to get the highest score. While this can be disappointing one has to remember that we have a finite number of bottles available at any one time due to the fact we mainly bottle from single casks or in the case of the Small batch black label 2 casks can be married together to create some rather legendary drams.

We will try to give you our advice in the newsletter as to what is good but that like any on-line review is subject to personal opinion or as i am often doing adding customer comments to the web shop especially if that vintage has been tried and enjoyed in the tasting room.

So my advice is read the newsletters check the web shop where you will find the tasting notes alone with any comments about the product before the actual tasting note itself, the comments are feedback not our personal opinions.

Now back to the whiskies…

Due to high demand and the Bank holiday weekend we will ship all web orders on Tuesday to avoid them being lost in a backlog at the delivery company.

Longrow Red 12 years in a Pinot Noir caskABV 52.9% Vol 9000 bottles in the world

We are aware that this new Longrow is going to sell very fast just as it did last year. We sadly have a limit of 1 bottle per customer due to the high demand and limited availability. If we get anymore we will naturally release it as and when it comes in just as we have done with several vintages in the past.

Allocations are not in my control, what I get is all done back in Scotland by head office who need to keep not only our web shop and retail stores stocked they also need to supply to customers around the world so in the case of Longrow Red 9000 bottles will not last that long.

Springbank 12 cask strength 53.8% Vol 9000 Bottles in the world

This is truly limited availability for August / September 2015, so limited it might not make it onto the web shop! However don’t worry too much if you miss this one as another batch is due in January 2016 that should give us a few more cases!

If you missed the archive bottles that hit the web shop across August (We only had 1 bottle of some of the products so it was blink you will miss it) We have a few more to add as soon as we have compiled the full list.

WHAT’S NEXT?

At the moment we are finalising the next small batch release, around 12-13 new products should be on the next newsletter with age ranges from 14 years to 38 years, one of them is a trademark blended malt of 26 years that I know will be gone very quickly, more on that and why we are advising that it’s a trademark product in the next newsletter.

We also have a rather special Speyside vintage 26 years old in a sherry cask again, it’s rather stunning but I must confess I have a special place in my whisky collection for any malts from the distillery.

Two Islay malts are also in the next batch not Ardbeg so no panic just exceptional tastes for Islay lovers.

TUBE STRIKE AND TASTINGS

As some of you who live in London know we have had several months of Tube Strikes taking place with the knock on effect for customers wishing to attend the Tasting Room events we run daily.

 It can take several weeks to book a Tuesday-Thursday or Friday evening if not months starting in September I should guess given the rate of enquiries we are getting each day.

Because so many have cancelled due to the now moronic strikes we will be busier than usual for some of the Tuesdays and Thursdays as people try to re-book, with this in mind we are looking at holding a few on Wednesday evenings assuming the strikes are close to over (If TFL/ Unions and the Mayor can sit down and talk that is rather than act like brats)

As and when the situation clears up we will let you know via the newsletter or on the web site.

SHIPPING

Just a short reminder that our London store does not ship to the EU or the rest of the world just yet due to so many changes in the law and to be honest price hikes that make it dreadfully expensive to do so, we know London is expensive but some of the prices we get quoted are truly shocking, no matter how much we would try to explain this during the ordering process we would have so many complaints and cancelled orders it’s currently not economical to offer this service.

Well that’s it for this short newsletter I will be sending another out shortly with the full details of new products.

All the best

Stephen at Cadenhead’s London