This weeks episode of the #GoodDramShow https://youtu.be/mFCBE9TJJcU features the Series 011 releases from North Star Whisky

WELCOME THE WHISKY SEASON WITH MEMBERSHIP TO THE WORLD’S LEADING WHISKY CLUB 

The gift of membership to The Scotch Malt Whisky Society offers your loved ones the chance to discover new flavours and experiences with fellow whisky-lovers across the globe 

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) opens up a whole new world of adventures for the whisky-lover in your life. Unique whisky experiences that can be enjoyed in the comfort of your own home are at the heart of this colourful whisky club, and annual membership starts from just £65: https://smws.com/whisky-club-membership

The Society offers an ever-changing range of one-off whiskies, released each month in a new Outturn across the complete spectrum of flavour profiles. Membership includes access to these whiskies and tickets to a calendar of exciting and informative virtual events.

Every Society single malt whisky is hand-picked for its exceptional quality and intriguing character. Distinctive, diverse and strictly limited to the contents of one cask, each bottling is a case study in flavour and a precious opportunity to experience whisky in its purest form, straight from the cask.

But being part of its ever-growing community of over 27,000 whisky fans goes beyond the Society’s outstanding single-cask spirits. Membership provides exclusive access to Members’ Rooms in Edinburgh, London and Glasgow as well as a calendar of UK-wide virtual tasting events.

FESTIVE HOME ENTERTAINMENT WITH SMWS

The Society has adapted to its members’ needs with an extended programme of at-home entertainment over the festive period. The SMWS gives festivities a twist with virtual tastings, masterclasses, live music, podcasts, video content, music playlists and much more, all available to members at: https://smws.com/events 

ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP  

A year’s membership to the Society costs £65 and provides whisky-lovers with benefits throughout the year, including access to the multi award-winning monthly Outturns of around 20 new single cask whiskies; free subscription to digital magazine Unfiltered, its award-winning monthly digital members’ magazine; and a calendar of colourful events and intriguing whisky experiences to share alongside other like-minded members.

Tailor your membership with a choice of extras:

• HAPPY HAMPER: SOCIETY HOSTING KIT (+£90): The brand new Society Tasting Kit, bringing you everything you’ll need to host a whisky tasting in the comfort of your own home: 2 Society glasses, whisky journal, water jug and pipette, tasting mat, 3 x 10cl Society whiskies.

• FLAVOUR FUN: BOTTLE OF THE MOMENT (+£45): Whatever your home entertainment plans, you’ll need some great whisky to see you through. Delve straight into the Society’s unique flavour spectrum of flavour, add your first 70cl bottle to your membership.

• EXPLORE: FIVE-DRAM DISCOVERY PACK & VIRTUAL TASTING (+£25): The perfect pack for self-exploration in the comfort of your own home. Kick-start your membership and take part in your first Society tasting online, where you’ll be guided through five 25ml drams by Society ambassador Bob Wenting. 

• CURL UP: THE FOUNDER’S TALE (+£14.99): Going hand-in-hand with a great whisky is a good read. Society founder Pip Hills has written a book about the Society’s origins and how it grew into the world’s leading whisky club.

To buy membership to The Scotch Malt Whisky Society as a gift this Christmas, visit: https://smws.com/whisky-club-membership 

VENUES

The SMWS has its spiritual home at The Vaults in Leith, Edinburgh as well as a Members’ Room at 28 Queen Street in the city centre. Non-members can also experience a range of single cask whiskies and other spirits at Queen Street’s Kaleidoscope Whisky bar, as well as a selection of fantastic food in the renowned Dining Room.

As well as locations in Edinburgh, the SMWS has an exclusive Members’ Room at 19 Greville Street in London’s Farringdon district, and opened a new Members’ Room at 38 Bath Street in Glasgow in early 2020, providing a perfect place for the high number of dedicated members in and around the city to share a dram.

SMWS Partner Bars are every bit as extraordinary as the Society’s malts. With nearly 100 worldwide locations, they’re ideal for experiencing a one-off single malt Scotch whisky.

https://www.smws.com/

f: https://www.facebook.com/thesmwsuk

i: https://www.instagram.com/smws_uk/

t: https://twitter.com/SMWSUK

yt: https://www.youtube.com/user/SMWSsilverscreen/videos

#SMWS 

Notes:

About The Scotch Malt Whisky Society 

• The Scotch Malt Whisky Society was established in Edinburgh in 1983 and now has more than 27,000 members and branches around the world
• The SMWS bottles rare single cask, single malt whisky, and a range of other spirits
• The Society bottles single malts, unique single casks and exclusive blends
• The Society has bottled whisky from more than 138 distilleries from Scotland and beyond
• The Society offers a new batch of around 20 single cask, single malt whiskies every month
• The Society offers a variety of membership packages which can be tailored. Please see https://bit.ly/2uqKanT
• For more information about the Society, visit https://bit.ly/2HHiNyC
• Twitter: @SMWSUK Facebook: @thesmwsuk Instagram: @smws_uk

New go-to winter warmers

It’s time to wrap up! Explore our new arrivals at Loch Fyne and keep yourself warm with delicious drams from Glen Moray, Glen Scotia and many more.

Shop New Releases ›

Blue Spot
£75.00

The return of a classic! Last seen in 1964, Blue Spot is distilled at Midleton distillery in Ireland and matured in a combination of bourbon, sherry and Madeira casks, reflecting the history of its wine-merchant creators Mitchell & Son.

Buy now ›

Glen Scotia 30 Year Old
£850.00

With just 500 bottles available worldwide, this 30-year-old single malt from Glen Scotia is a rare beauty! This expression was laid to rest in single sherry hogshead on 21st December 1989 for three whole decades.

Buy now ›

Glen Moray 2006
Sauternes Cask
£79.95

Aged for 14 years in five sweet Sauternes wine casks, this expression strikes a perfect balance between Glen Moray’s signature Speyside style and the honeyed sweetness of France’s most famous dessert wine. Enjoy festive flavours of dark chocolate, caramel, Seville orange and spice. Delicious!

Buy now ›

We hope everybody enjoyed participating in our 114^th auction.

Following the update from the Scottish Government collections and drop off appointments at our Glasgow office will resume from 10am on Friday 11th December.

These appointments can be made using the form on our website HERE. During this period our reception area will be closed to the public and all drop offs / collections will be conducted from our loading bay area (large roller shutters immediately to the right of the reception area).

In order for this system to function properly, all orders that are being collected must be paid for in advance (online or over the phone) as we are unable to take payment in person. When booking your appointment please specify all the orders you intend to collect so we can have them ready when you arrive.  We would also ask that you adhere as closely as possible to your allotted appointment time to avoid overlapping with other customers, and if you arrive early please wait in your vehicle.

Upon arrival, please make yourself known at the reception window, or by ringing the doorbell.

Thanks for your understanding and cooperation.

GIVE WEMYSS MALTS THIS CHRISTMAS

This year, we’ve put together our favourite Wemyss Malts gifts for every whisky lover. Whether they’re an avid collector, or newly discovering whisky, we’ve got the gift for them.

EXPLORE OUR WHISKY FINDER

Start Shopping – All New Releases

Christmas can be a busy time; shopping for presents, preparing the dinner and choosing the perfect festive tipple, so let the Society do some of the work for you with our Christmas flavour guide. We’ve matched a Flavour Profile to every part of the festive celebrations, from party food, to Christmas Eve dinner to the big day itself – so you can easily find the perfect accompaniment to your occasion.

SEE OUR CHRISTMAS FLAVOUR GUIDE

VIEW ALL WHISKIES

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

Mark’s Whisky Ramblings 353: Caol Ila 13 Year Old 2007 The Octave for Wine4You

Mark Dermul, Belgian whisky vlogger, tries another Ileach. An Octave is a smaller type of cask that enables the spirit to have more contact with the wood and hence mature a lot faster. This Caol Ila from 2007 had the pleasure of kissing wood from a sherry octave. It was bottled by Duncan Taylor in their famous The Octave series, exclusively for the Belgian shop Wine4You. And it’s a stunner!

https://youtu.be/8JTTWxGhDCQ

Bids open at Whisky Hammer for unique historic cask resurrected by Holyrood Distillery

-Bidding closes at 7pm GMT this Sunday 13^th December – 

Daniel Milne

Whisky lovers have until Sunday (13 December) to bid on a very special series of casks from Holyrood Distillery, Edinburgh’s first single malt distillery for almost 100 years, on leading online auction platform Whisky Hammer.

Holyrood Distillery is recreating historic single malt whiskies based on those produced during Edinburgh’s rich distilling past and these are exclusively available on Whisky Hammer in their first dedicated online cask auction. The auction went live on Friday 4 December with bids starting at £3,000 for each numbered sherry hogshead from Holyrood Distillery. The auction closes at 7pm (GMT) on Sunday 13 December.

For this special auction, the distillery has adopted the whisky making styles used by Edinburgh distilleries in the 1800s and early 1900s. It is filling just 30 casks which will be distilled barley varieties during that period: Chevallier barley and Plumage Archer. Each winning bidder will then be able to select the historic barley variety they prefer and choose the wood to age the whisky in: American oak Oloroso Sherry Hogsheads or Spanish oak Pedro Ximenez Sherry Hogsheads. Holyrood Distillery will also use old-style brewer’s yeasts and recreate the slow distillation methods the now-closed Edinburgh distilleries would once have used. The casks will be filled with spirit in early 2021 and left to mature into exquisite single malt Scotch whisky.

The majority of the city’s distilleries closed in the 19^th century with the last ones being Dean, closing in 1922 and Glen Sciennes distillery, closing in 1925. Holyrood Distillery resurrected the distilling of single malt with its opening in 2019.

Whisky Hammer is one of the leading online whisky auctions globally and hosts online auctions each month.  Dedicated to whisky and other fine spirits, Whisky Hammer’s auctions allow buyers and sellers from every corner of the world to participate. It has auctioned many rare and collectible whiskies – both bottles and casks – since its launch in 2016. But this partnership with Holyrood Distillery marks Whisky Hammer’s first dedicated cask auction, and shows the growing interest in this area among whisky lovers and investors.

In October, Whisky Hammer auctioned a rare bottle of the world’s oldest whisky ever released by The Macallan – also believed to be the oldest whisky ever launched by a distillery – a 78-year old from the producer’s new Red Collection for £92,500.

Whisky Hammer has recently re-located to a new, purpose built, facility in Aberdeenshire which is also home to a sister business, Still Spirit – a whisky shop and exquisite tasting room.

Holyrood Distillery started distilling in September 2019 in Edinburgh’s city centre. Located right in the heart of Edinburgh’s historic distilling district – on St. Leonard’s Lane with views over Holyrood Park – the 180-year-old building has been thoughtfully renovated to produce gin, liqueurs and whisky.

Daniel Milne, managing director of Whisky Hammer, said: “Since the Holyrood Distillery cask auction went live on Friday, we’ve had great interest with a number of bids arriving from across the world. Purchasing whisky by the cask is continuing to grow in popularity, and we feel this is offering is further enhanced given Holyrood’s innovative recreation of historic Edinburgh heritage whiskies.

“We’re honoured to partner with Holyrood Distillery to offer these casks exclusively to our customers and would urge anyone interested in participating in the auction not to miss out on this fantastic opportunity.”

David Robertson, co-founder of Holyrood Distillery, said:  “It’s great to see the interest in these unique casks. At Holyrood Distillery, we’ve taken a contemporary, flavour-led approach to our spirits, so recreating these historic whisky styles has been a fascinating process for us. I know the lucky winners will enjoy continuing this journey with us as they watch their whisky develop and mature.” 

To bid in the Holyrood 2021 Heritage Barley cask auction, please visit https://www.whiskyhammer.com/auction/current.php 

New Members can sign-up to bid using Whisky Hammer’s quick and straightforward registration process.

Notes  

Link to film: https://youtu.be/asLy3xa8qTU 

Follow Whisky Hammer on @whiskyhammer on Facebook and Instagram.

Follow Holyrood Distillery on @Holyroodwhisky on Twitter and @Holyrooddistillery on Facebook and Instagram.

Whisky Hammer:

• Whisky Hammer hosts auctions once a month, dedicated to whisky and other fine spirits, allowing buyers and sellers from every corner of the globe to participate at www.whiskyhammer.com
• It has auctioned many rare and collectible whiskies – both bottles and casks – since its launch in 2016.
• The business has recently re-located to a new, purpose built, facility in Aberdeenshire which is also home to a sister business, Still Spirit – a whisky shop and exquisite tasting room

Holyrood Distillery:

• Holyrood Distillery is the first single malt whisky distillery in Edinburgh for almost 100 years. The last working distillery in the capital was Andrew Usher’s Edinburgh Distillery (aka Glen Sciennes) which closed in 1925.
• Holyrood Distillery was founded by Canadian couple, Rob and Kelly Carpenter and Scot, David Robertson. Rob co-founded the Canadian branch of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society with wife Kelly, while David has 25 years experience in the industry with The Macallan and The Dalmore, as well as co-founding Rare Whisky 101.
• As well as distilling single malt whisky, Holyrood Distillery produces award-winning gins and liqueurs on its specially designed gin still.
• The distillery, which is in the heart of Edinburgh, features a 5-star visitor centre and shop.
• In addition, Holyrood Distillery’s bespoke cask programme launched this autumn and allows customers to be involved in every stage of the production process to create something truly customised to personal tastes. To find out more about the Holyrood’s Bespoke Cask Programme, visit www.holyrooddistillery.co.uk/cask-owners/.

Bimber Distillery reveals Re-charred single casks 

Re-charred Oak Casks #68, #143 and #144 will be available to purchase directly from the distillery from Thursday 10^th December 2020 

Concluding release of 2020 marks the end of highly successful first year for London craft distillery For Immediate Release

London’s award winning Bimber Distillery today announced the upcoming release of three single cask single malt whiskies drawn from the distillery’s remaining stock of re-charred oak casks.

Three exceptional casks from Bimber’s small inventory of hand-charred casks were reserved during the creation of the distillery’s popular maiden Small Batch release in October 2019. Following an additional year of maturation, these casks are now being made available as cask strength, single cask expressions.

The three new releases will be available to purchase directly from Bimber’s website from Thursday 10^th December. They are limited to one bottle per person and priced at £85.

The casks were hand charred by Bimber’s on-site coopers to level #4 char – also known as ‘alligator char’. This deep charring process caramelises the wood sugars, promotes greater interaction between the spirit and the oak and adds a layer of filtering carbon to the internal surfaces of the barrel.

The influence of this intense char has imparted incredible richness and distinctively sweet notes into these single malt whiskies. All of which perfectly marry with Bimber’s fruit-forward, spice-led house style.

Speaking of the upcoming release, Bimber spokesperson Matt McKay said: “We’re delighted to end what has been a tremendous year for Bimber with these very special single cask whiskies. The Small Batch edition of our Re-charred Oak Casks released last Autumn was a first taste of our single malt for many whisky lovers. Over the months since, we’ve received many requests to produce more of this popular expression – and so we’re now truly excited to unveil these three single cask editions.

He added: “It has been a challenging year for everyone involved in the industry and so we’re eternally grateful for all the support that the whisky community has shown us. We’re very eager to see how the growing cohort of Bimber fans react to these final releases of 2020.”

Notes

Re-charred Oak Cask – Single Cask Releases December 2020 

Tasting notes (for Cask #144)

NOSE: Flambe orange peels, bruised apples and pineapple juices mingle with split vanilla pods and singed honeycomb. Cracked black pepper and oak smoke are tempered by rich toffee and creamy nougat.

PALATE: Jammy hedgerow berries, red apples and banana peels are combined with burnt toffee and butterscotch sauce. Prominent, characterful nutmeg and pepper wood spice runs through delivering both impact and a lively freshness.

FINISH: Sustained char and spice balances perfectly against lingering fruitiness and unctuous vanilla.

Cask #68 

70CL/58.1%ABV

1. OF BOTTLES 295

RRP £85

Cask #143 

70CL/58.4%ABV

1. OF BOTTLES 299

RRP £85  

Cask #144 

70CL/57.9%ABV

1. OF BOTTLES 303

RRP £85

Release date: Thursday 10^th December. Available directly via www.bimberdistillery.co.uk  

About Bimber  

Bimber Distillery produces world-class single malt whisky, handcrafted with passion in West London. As a leading distiller of English whisky, we combine generations of rich distilling heritage with the finest quality ingredients to create the ultimate craft whisky experience.