NOVEMBER AUCTION ENDS TOMORROW!

The latest auction at whisky.auction ends tomorrow from 7.30pm GMT.

There are some great bottles still sitting at good prices so take a look at our selection and don’t miss your chance to place your bids on our large selection of bottles.

We have more than 200 miniatures, including some rare single malts, as well as some very old blended whisky from the 1930s onwards.

Don’t miss your chance to bid on these great lots.

Cask No. 26.102                     $220  

Pomanders in a lady’s parlour

Highland, Northern

The nose had undeniable sweetness (Edinburgh Rock, glazed fruit tarts in a patisserie and jam-making) but beyond that we found an enigma of teasing aromas, including Barbour jackets, scented candles, basketry, leather, polished wood, shale, sandalwood, fir and freesias. With water we detected more citrus and ‘rose creams and pomanders in a refined lady’s parlour’. The palate was deliciously sweet and warming with a pleasant waxy mouth-feel; sweet flavours of marzipan petits fours, honey, Danish pastries, fruit fondants and chocolate truffles; but the experience made more complex with lemon, orange zest, leather, cinnamon, clove and aromatic oils. Brora’s only working distillery.

Drinking tip: A delightful reward for having done a good deed or for hard work.

Colour: Light amber

Cask: Refill butt

Age: 29 years

Date distilled: December 1984

Alcohol: 56.0%

USA allocation: 114 bottles

Flavour profile: Sweet, fruity & mellow 

*President’s Choice*

Cask No. 41.67                               $240

Bitter-sweet with a dash of fun

Speyside, Spey

True to its colour the nose delivered apricot jam, brown sugar-sprinkled peach flan and orange crepes; we also found pressed flowers, butterscotch, lemon drizzle cake and tinned syrup sponge – quite a dessert! The neat taste was a bitter-sweet experience of dark chocolate orange, oranges preserved in brandy syrup, marmalade, lemon sherbets and warming spices (chilli, ginger, liquorice). The reduced nose became a tropical fruit explosion – lemon, lime, papaya, banana, cranberry, raspberry, rhubarb, with some floral notes chucked in for fun. The palate remained mouth-drawingly citric (grapefruit, lime zest, gooseberry) but reasonably balanced by sweet and sour confectionery (Haribo Tangfastics, Jolly Ranchers).

Drinking tip: An early summer’s evening perhaps – but be sure to allow it plenty of time.

Colour: Muted apricot blush

Cask: Refill hogshead

Age: 30 years

Date distilled: September 1984

Alcohol: 53.7%

USA allocation: 60 bottles

Flavour profile: Sweet, fruity & mellow 

*Low Outturn*

Cask No. 35.122                     $125 

Perfumed lady at a garden fête

Speyside, Lossie

The nose combined sweet and woody notes – sawmill yards, hessian, peeled twigs, white pepper and leather lined up against golden syrup, mashed banana, bread-and-butter pudding, barley sugars and vanilla sponge. The palate balanced vanilla ice-cream, honey and sugar puffs with pink grapefruit, perfume, chilli pepper and lemon – really quite interesting and unusual. On the reduced nose a perfumed lady stood between a sweetie stall (jelly tots, tutti frutti, sherbet straws) and a cake stand at a garden fête. The palate was now sweet, salty, spicy, woody, teasing, titillating and tremendously tasty. The distillery is vulnerable to flooding from the River Lossie.

Drinking tip: Unusual enough to provoke conversation

Colour: Saharan sands

Cask: First-fill barrel

Age: 12 years

Date distilled: December 2001

Alcohol: 57.3%

USA allocation: 72 bottles

Flavour profile: Spicy & sweet 

Cask No. 50.64                       $200

Magic balloons in a eucalyptus forest

Lowland

To our noses, it seemed that magic balloons floated free, then exploded into firework bursts of flowers, which fell to earth in a eucalyptus forest; we also got lime cordial, sultanas, Christmas spices and dark chocolate orange. The palate was an explosion of syrupy fruits (cherry, orange) and various fruity sweets, some dark chocolate, interesting chilli spice plus polished furniture and book shelves. Fruits were more obvious on the reduced nose (rhubarb rock, papaya, dragon fruit, mandarin) – someone got an old-fashioned Post Office (sweets, newspapers, stationery etc). The palate now found sugar-coated fennel seeds, ginger Edinburgh Rock, lychee and lemonade.

Drinking tip: To provide inspiration while Christmas shopping on-line

Colour: Toffee penny wrapper

Cask: Refill barrel

Age: 25 years

Date distilled: January 1990

Alcohol: 54.5%

USA allocation: 79 bottles

Flavour profile: Spicy & sweet

*USA exclusive*

Cask No. 3.234                       $145

Scallops cooked on a puffer shovel

Islay

The nose had many dimensions – rock-pools and busy harbours, sweet toffee, vanilla and Edinburgh Rock, something sweetly citric (Jaffa cakes, chocolate limes), savoury notes of smoky bacon, heather flowers and Germolene. The palate had sherbet, parma violets, smoked gammon and Demerara; marshmallows speared on twigs roasting over a beach bonfire and ‘scallops cooked on a puffer shovel’ – a complex dram with a big presence. Water brought heather honey, jasmine, lavender oil and hot dogs to the nose. The palate now had grilled prawns and floral smoke – sweeter and more gentle but somehow still impressive. The distillery is in the island’s capital.

 Drinking tip: Evening barbeque – with meat, fish or marshmallows

Colour: Gold coins

Cask: Refill butt

Age: 16 years

Date distilled: September 1997

Alcohol: 57.5%

USA allocation: 180 bottles

Flavour profile: Peated

The Outturn can be viewed online here: Early December 2015 Outturn

Please link readers to http://www.smwsa.com/ for more information.

English Whisky Last Guaranteed Christmas Delivery Dates for 2015
Order soon to guarantee delivery before Christmas.
Tracked Service (£7.95)
Friday 18th December
Untracked Service (£4.95)
Wednesday 9th December

We recommend booking Distillery tours
early to avoid disappointment.
Call 01953 717939 or email info@englishwhisky.co.uk

WHATEVER IT MAY BE, MAKE IT ENGLISH.

The English Whisky Co. | Harling Road | Roudham | Norfolk | NR16 2QW | 01953 717939

info@englishwhisky.co.uk | www.englishwhisky.co.uk

Introducing the brand new Octomore 7.3 – available to order while stocks last! Don’t forget – Free delivery on all orders over £100 to mainland UK

This, Octomore 07.3, is the second release of Octomore whisky made from barley grown two miles along the coast from the distillery at farmer James Brown’s Octomore farm.

It was distilled in 2010 from grain harvested on Lorgba field the previous summer, peated to 169ppm and matured on Islay for all its life in American bourbon barrels and Spanish wine casks of Ribera del Duero.

To Taste: Elegant, powerful, deep and proud of its Islay DNA.

Click to buy £165

The Whisky Barrel “We can’t deny Christmas any longer!”

CHRISTMAS GIFTS

December is here – #GoldenTicket and Advent Calendar

It’s December, no matter how hard certain members of the TWE blog team have been trying to deny it – Rocky ‘Krampus’ Lancer, we’re looking at you – Christmas is now definitely on the way. We’ve launched our Christmas page over on the website, but along with that we’ve got a couple of other great things to tell you about – #GoldenTicket and our annual Fine Spirits and Whisky Advent Calendar.

Our #GoldenTicket prize draw has returned, and we have five great prizes to give away, all whiskies that received awards in Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2016.

We have Jim’s World’s Best Whisky, Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye, his third best, Midleton Dair Ghaelach, and fourth, last year’s William Larue Weller from the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection. We also have the unwieldily named ‘Best No Age Statement (Multiple Casks)’, the 2009 release of the venerable Ardbeg Supernova – a cracking whisky that we now sell for £350.

The fifth bottle we’re giving away is a secret – we’ll have more details later in the month…

All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning a bottle from the list is to order something from the site between today and the end of December – we’ve got five Golden Tickets and we’ll drop one into a random box from time to time during the month: each ticket gets a specific bottle from the list, which the winners will find out after entering a secret code number into our site.

Every order is eligible and we’ll be keeping everyone informed as to how things are going on Twitter and Facebook.

Our second seasonal treat is the Advent Calendar. This year, we’ve changed things round a bit and will be running 24 offers over the next 24 days, each lasting just 24 hours – midnight to midnight each day in December leading up to Christmas. We’ve got whisky, spirits, liqueurs and Champagne behind the doors, and we’ve got great deals on each of them. Just click through below to open today’s door…

As a sneak preview, all we’ll say is that if you like Johnnie Walker, then make sure you check the Advent Calendar tomorrow – the deal, in Sesame Street fashion, is brought to you by the number 20% and the colour gold…

TOMATIN TASTING 26 NOVEMBER 2015, PERTH

They made me go! I was dragged kicking and screaming … Tomatin is one of my favourite drams, so I really reluctantly agreed, was it really worth all the effort? AYE it was. Alistair did a wonderful job of hosting this evening event in Perth at Exel, with my pal Keron pouring the drinks, heavier than usual by the way.

From 23 stills in days gone by, once the largest distillery in Scotland, I didnee know the largest shareholder (days gone by) was a coal miners collective! Tomatin in the Gaelic; the hill of the juniper bush, I also didnee know 80% of the people living in the cottages nearby actually work at the distillery. With a warehouse capacity of 220k casks and a max production of 2.5 million litres (used to be 15m), it is sold in over 30 countries worldwide. Going back again in time, any blend, aye … any blend would have had a dribble of Tomatin hidden in there, they used to sell 99.9% to blenders, not any more thankfully, now they offer fantastic single malts – I’ll get to them – with maybe W&M being a blend they still supply. Japanese owned since 1984, this distillery we reckon gives maybe 3% to the angels, being a highland laddie with varying temperatures. So, to the sampling from the 12 remaining stills … we started with Tomatin 12yo. At 43% it is chill filtered, bourbon cask and sherry finish 6 – 9 months, ah, they do sometimes add a wee bit o colour/caramel. I think maybe USA is a big market for this one, a cheeky wee highland malt, could easily pass for a Speyside, good value, nice but no a favourite I have to say.

Moving on to the Tomatin 14 yo, this was really good, a port finish, 46% non chilled, 13 years in bourbon and a year in Tawny Port pipe. A pinky colour (no added colour) you can taste the port influence, but not overly so. Yep, liked this one. By the way, Tomatin have no plans to drop age statements. Third up, the 18 year old (my best dram of the night), their signature dram, 16 years bourbon followed by 2 in Oloroso 1^st fill, this has the intensity that makes it a cracker, at £45 at the tasting who could resist? I bought three, one I gave to Mr Chan, kept the other two myself for a dark, cold, snow filled night – on my own (maybe will share with Liz at our staff get away). Non chilled, I recommend this to everyone. A water break, no much mind, then onto a cask strength jobbie, not a single cask, non chilled again, at 57.5% this reminded me of a Glenmorangie Signet, chocolate and sherry, 12 – 16 year olds, this almost took first prize of the night, reckon just a midgie’s whisker away from the 18 yo. This gem ended our Tomatin tasting, but – more to follow, we had a Cu Bochan (koo bakan) single malt, lightly peated, virgin oak, the name in Gaelic; the ghost dog, or wolf. It was good. Followed by Cu Bocan Bourbon, refil cask, limited edition.

The night ended there (whisky), many thanks to Alistair and Keron, by the way Keron, will be back for a cask bottle. A great tasting, lovely drams and informative, learned a lot. By 8pm I was starving, so dondered over to Mr Chan’s place for food, got home eventually, woke up next day with clothes everywhere but two bottles of 18yo and my Tomatin glass neatly shelved! What’s the next one? I have to say, before the Tomatin tasting, I was involved with a Macallan tasting earlier that night, Amber, Sienna and Ruby, only the latter came close to the Tomatins.

 Paul McLean  http://whiskytours.scot/

Please find below a link to a press release from the Managing Editor of Whisky Magazine announcing the results of the Icons of Whisky Scotland 2016, Hall of Fame Scotland 2016 and Independent Bottlers Challenge 2015.

THE AWARDS

BLACK BOTTLE’S MAL SPENCE UPS THE ANTE AT ANTI ESTABLISHMENT

Anti Establisment in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, saw the return of Black Bottle Scotch whisky with an epic cocktail workshop hosted by Mal Spence, the global ambassador for the brand. Some of the best of Jozi’s bartenders battled it out in a mystery ingredient challenge.

Gift Ngwenya of Misty Hills and Justine Coetzer of Thirst won the challenge with their superb combinations that Spence praised for incredible balance and the harmonious combination of flavours that let the unique taste of Black Bottle shine through.

Says Lucindi Branfield, the SA marketing manager for the brand: “Mal personifies Black Bottle on so many levels, from his quirky Scottish creative passion and know-how, to his compelling story-telling in the way he narrates the fascinating history of the whisky and its very special taste profile.

Black Bottle offers a unique and ultra-versatile blend of top single malt and grain whiskies. Fresh and floral on the nose with whiffs of new-sawn oak and a hint of smoke, it opens onto a silky palate with delicate smoke and peat balanced by sweet oak and honey, to end on a lingering finish of spice.

As its name suggests, Black Bottle was originally sold in an opaque black bottle. Launched by the Graham brothers in 1879 in Aberdeen, Scotland, it soon developed a loyal following. The distinctive black bottles used were sourced from Germany. When World War I interrupted supply, the black bottle was replaced by a readily available green bottle.

Now, a century later, Black Bottle is back in black, celebrating its origins with a retro look and its original blend. The new design has been inspired by a black bottle found in the company archives dating to 1906, while the blend has been adjusted to reflect the recipe created in Aberdeen by Gordon Graham 136 years ago.

Go to http://www.theblackbar.co.za/ and enter your details should you wish to exclusive Black Bottle events.

Follow Black Bottle on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/BlackBottleSA) and/or Twitter (https://twitter.com/BlackBottleSA).

Join the conversation using: #BlackBar

 This article in a Tweet:

Epic @BlackBottleSA cocktail workshop hosted by Mal Spence at Anti Establishment in #Jozi’s #Braamfontein. Images: http://on.fb.me/1SjjGbN.

Scotland – Land of Whisky 2016
Calendar for Scotland lovers and whisky fans

The pagoda roofs of the Dalwhinnie Distillery are a unique landmark in the Scottish Highlands. They decorate the title of a new calendar especially for Scotland lovers and whisky fans: „Scotland – Land of Whisky 2016“. The Germany-based photo journalist Michael Schmidt lived in Glasgow for two years time and was busy as a press correspondent and tourist guide. In Scotland, he learned a lot about the national drink. He started taking pictures of whisky distilleries and went on to self-publish a calendar in 2010, which is now available in the UK for the first time.

Scotland – Land of Whisky is full of pictures shot at famous distilleries per example: Deanston, Dalwhinnie and Fettercairn. It depicts unique moments of the art of whisky production. One motive shows the sanctum of Aberfeldy Distillery – its dark and damp warehouse packed with wooden casks. Michael Schmidt talks about shooting pictures at distilleries: „It is rather difficult to get a permission to take pictures inside the buildings. It takes time and some persuasion.”

The calendar is not just an eye-catcher for whisky fans. It shows all the ingredients of a Scotland lover´s dream: cute Puffins, the dramatic mountain scenery of Glen Coe and secluded sandy beaches in the far North.

The German design agency K.Design in Wiesbaden was in charge of layout. The small calendars (210 x 148 mm) cost 10,80 £, the large prints (420 x 297 mm) 17,90 £. For order details please contact: reporter@schmidt-punkt.de. Postage is additional, depending on the number of orders.

The photographer Michael Schmidt, born in 1974, works as freelance reporter and photo journalist in Langen (Hessen) near Frankfurt am Main in Germany. He organizes journalistic and photographic projects related to Scotland. He spent two years in Glasgow, working both as a correspondent for German media and as a travel guide. His major topics are renewable energy, media issues, religion, politics and the history of Scotland. In Germany he hosts whisky tastings and provides multimedia lectures about Scotland – his home away from home.

Michael Schmidt Photo Journalist  Freelance Reporter Voltastr. 4 63225 Langen (Hesse) Germany Tel.: 0049 6103-2027544 Mobil: 0049 173-7479269 E-Mail: reporter@schmidt-punkt.de Web: www.schmidt-punkt.de