The Good Dram Show – Episode 605 ‘August Round Up’

THE REVIEW

Welcome to this week’s episode of the show in which I’ll be taking a look at a selection of releases from The Shed Distillery, Holyrood Distillery, Lindores Abbey, Lochlea, Ardnamurchan and Torabhaig. The Good Dram Show with Chris Goodrum Episode 605 – The Elephant Has A Large Butt…! Filmed in The Study Nottingham

Featuring

Drumshanbo Galanta Triple Distilled Single Malt 46% www.thesheddistillery.com
Holyrood Pitch 49.4% holyrooddistillery.co.uk
Lindores Abbey Friar John Cor ‘The Cask Strength Congregation Chapter III’ 60.2% lindoresabbeydistillery.com
Lochlea Cask Strength Batch 3 59% www.lochleadistillery.com
Ardnamurchan AD/ Midge 2025 48% ardnamurchandistillery.com
Torabhaig Legacy 4: Sound of Sleat 46% torabhaig.com

Filmed & Edited by Chris Goodrum

CASK TRADE LAUNCHES WHISKY MASTERCLASS SERIES IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE DRINKS TRUST TO ELEVATE INDUSTRY KNOWLEDGE

Cask Trade, in collaboration with The Drinks Trust, is proud to announce the launch of a Whisky Masterclass as part of DEVELOP — a new, free educational programme designed to deepen whisky knowledge and elevate service standards across the drinks and hospitality industry.

Tailored for hospitality professionals, bartenders, and anyone working within the drinks trade, the DEVELOP Whisky Masterclass offers a unique opportunity to explore the world of cask strength, single malt whisky, a category often less understood but growing in popularity.

This in-depth workshop is aimed particularly at those who may not have had access to specialist training. It supports career development by empowering participants with the knowledge and confidence to speak passionately and professionally about whisky, ultimately enhancing the customer experience.

What You Will Learn:
•    The key differences between cask strength and commercial whiskies (single malt vs blends)
•    How to taste and evaluate whisky like an expert, exploring the nose, palate, and finish across multiple drams provided
•    Regional styles, flavour profiles, and the role of maturation and cask types
•    Practical knowledge to use on the floor, behind the bar, or in sales and service roles

Sessions will be held quarterly and led by whisky specialists from Cask Trade and are ideal for those looking to take their passion and expertise to the next level.

Simon Aron, Founder and Director of Cask Trade, commented: “A masterclass on single malt whisky will open a multitude of opportunities for anyone in the drinks trade looking to gain knowledge and confidence when talking about the water of life. Education, I believe, is the best way to support and give back to the drinks industry. At Cask Trade, we are committed to teaching anyone interested about the world of single malt whisky. In partnership with The Drinks Trust, we can make a difference.”

Nicola Burston, CEO of The Drinks Trust, added: “On behalf of The Drinks Trust, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Cask Trade for hosting such an insightful and exclusive whisky workshop. At a time when training and educational opportunities are increasingly scarce across our industry, initiatives like this are not only welcome but vital. It was especially meaningful to see this opportunity made available to individuals who may not otherwise have access to such high-quality learning experiences. Cask Trade’s commitment to sharing knowledge and nurturing talent within the drinks industry community is truly commendable, and we are incredibly grateful for your continued support.”

The DEVELOP Whisky Masterclass is part of The Drinks Trust’s broader DEVELOP initiative —  DEVELOP is The Drinks Trust’s flagship education, training, and employment initiative aimed at breaking down financial barriers for individuals looking to enter or advance in the UK drinks and hospitality industry. Launched in early 2022, the programme represents a unique, full-service offering combining bursaries, accredited training, and job placement support to cultivate a more skilled, inclusive workforce.

Spaces are limited. To learn more and apply for the DEVELOP Whisky Masterclass, visit the application page here.

ABOUT CASK TRADE:

Cask Trade was set up by Simon Aron in 2018, born from his personal experiences of buying casks as a passionate whisky collector for more than 20 years.

Having found cask ownership difficult to navigate with few reputable companies operating, he envisioned creating a marketplace that made buying and selling casks transparent, open, and honest.

Cask Trade has grown from strength to strength, building its success off several core values:
•    Stockists, not brokers – Cask Trade own all its stock, giving buyers a 100% transactional guarantee and the peace of mind that all casks have been through stringent quality checks.
•    Market-leading stocklist – since 2018, Cask Trade has represented over 170 distilleries across the world of whisky, rum, Cognac and Armagnac.
•    End-to-end support – Cask Trade nurtures client relationships beyond the point of sale and offers full cask management, sampling, re-gauges, and multiple exit options when customers come to sell on their cask.
•    Trust and transparency – The company’s casks are held in the best HMRC bonded warehouses, regularly visited and approved by Cask Trade whisky masters. All stock holdings have a complete paper trail.
•    Expert team – above all, the Cask Trade team are passionate about cask ownership and strives to help clients achieve their goals, whether they are looking to buy, sell or bottle their casks.

Alongside cask sale and ownership, Cask Trade offers other unique services which elevate client experience and cask exit when the time is right:

Cask Trade Warehouse 
In 2025, Cask Trade opened its own bonded warehouse. The unit is situated in Speyside, Scotland, and has the capacity for up to 25,000 casks. Clients can now book onto open days to visit the warehouse, see where their cask is stored, and sample directly from their cask or taste an indicative sample in the custom-built tasting room.

Cask Trade Bottling 
For trade clients and those looking to bottle and enjoy their cask, Cask Trade offers a comprehensive bottling service located next door to their warehouse in Speyside. From cask selection, bottle options, label design and printing, and shipping to your final location, Cask Trade Bottling looks after every element of the process.

Auction Your Cask
Auction Your Cask is the world’s first dedicated online cask auction site. With four auctions a year, clients as well as the public can either submit a cask to sell or bid on other casks with 0% seller fees and an agreed reserve.

Recognition 
Acknowledgement for the achievements of Cask Trade has been recognised by the FT1000 when the business was ranked as one of the fastest-growing companies in Europe; listed in The Sunday Times Hundred fastest-growing private companies in Britain and named among the UK’s most innovative new businesses’ by StartUps 100 Index. CEO and Founder Simon Aron and Director Colin Hampden-White have also been listed again in the Spear’s 500 Top Recommended Whisky Advisors 2025.

ABOUT THE DRINKS TRUST

The Drinks Trust is a trade charity providing financial assistance, emotional support, and opportunity for growth to drinks industry people. Our aim is to alleviate hardship, improve the wellbeing of our colleagues, and support their professional development.

To find out more visit: https://www.drinkstrust.org.uk/ For any media enquiries please contact Alessandra Brugola, Head of Marketing & Communications at alessandra@drinkstrust.org.uk

Glengoyne 18 Year Old

Matured in a generous share of Oloroso sherry casks, our 18 Year Old Highland Single Malt is rich, rounded, and full-bodied, with indulgent notes of marzipan and a long, warming finish.

COLOUR
Medium gold with a rich glow.

NOSE
Awash with red apple, ripe melon and fresh banana. Heavenly and well rounded, it drifts into hot porridge topped with brown sugar.

PALATE
Full bodied, round and rich. At first macerated fruits, marzipan and walnuts; then warm spices, dry cocoa and lingering Seville marmalade.

Glengoyne 21 Year Old Sherry Oak

Matured exclusively in sherry casks, our 21 Year Old Sherry Oak Highland Single Malt is a festive delight – Christmas cake in a glass, brimming with honey, rich fruits, and a gentle cinnamon spice on the finish.

COLOUR
Deep Copper, meandering legs

NOSE
Red apples, toffee, sherry, spicy strudel.

PALATE

Lots of Sherry, honey, oak with a developing aromatic sensation. Ends with a heavenly cinnamon nip.

Rock Island

16 Years Old Sherry Cask

In case you missed it…

For the first time ever, our adventurous Blended Malt Scotch Whisky, Rock Island, has been released at 16 years old. A true island adventure in a bottle, it unites single malts from Orkney, Arran, Jura and Islay, before spending time maturing mostly in hand-selected Spanish Sherry casks. Expect a richly maritime, subtly smoky dram that captures the spirit of the sea — and then some.+

Abv: 46.8% | Vol:70cl | Cask: Predominantly matured in Spanish Sherry Casks | Spec: No Colour Added | Spec: No Chill-Filtration

DISCOVER MORE

An extraordinary encapsulation of the very best Single Malts distilled on the glorious islands of Islay, Arran, Jura and Orkney (amongst others), Rock Island is a subtle, smoky and sweet celebration of the sea. Part of the Remarkable Regional Malts range, the ultimate distillation of Scotland’s Malt Whisky Regions.

DISCOVER NEW YAMAZAKI:
18 & 25 YEAR OLD

The unmistakable style of Yamazaki owes much to careful fermentation, distillation and blending – but it’s the influence of Mizunara that sets these two whiskies apart.

This native Japanese oak is famously difficult to work with, but the flavours it imparts are captivating. Yamazaki is the only distillery on earth with the stocks to produce these single malts.

 SHOP NOW 

ARDNAMURCHAN 

NORTH STAR – AW EXCLUSIVE

We’re delighted to present our latest Abbey Whisky Exclusive, created in partnership with the award winning independent Scotch whisky bottler, North Star Spirits. Distilled at Ardnamurchan in 2019 and fully matured in a peated sherry butt, this rare release was bottled at natural cask strength, 52.6% vol and limited to just 60 bottles. To make the experience even more special, each purchase includes a 3cl miniature of the very same whisky, the perfect chance to share a dram with someone special and spread the whisky love.

This is a rare opportunity to enjoy an exceptional whisky release that captures the craft and quality of both Ardnamurchan and North Star Spirits.

SHOP NOW

Turning time into liquid gold: the deliberate, patient craft behind whisky maturation

Making whisky is a slow process. Deliberately slow. How does time and expertise transform raw spirit into a mature, refined liquid?

A slow, transformative journey

AUGUST 2025 AUCTION ENDS TONIGHT!

Fear not, there is still time to bid on your favourite bottles, including this stunning bottle of Macallan Time: Space Mastery. Released in September 2024 to mark the 200th anniversary of the Macallan Distillery. Beautifully presented in a curiously shaped circular bottle symbolising life’s enduring cycle, paying homage to the history and story of the distillery and Its age old whisky making processes.

Or how about this stunning bottling, which was distilled in 1983 at Dallas Dhu, aged for 23 years and then bottled at an unspecified date for the distillery caretakers Historic Scotland.

Released in 2012 to celebrate Burns night, this beautiful bottling of Cutty Sark with elaborate case depicts a scene from the legendary Burns poem Tam O’Shanter and comes with a hardback book which includes the poem itself, stunning artwork inspired by the poem and a brief history. This 25 year old Blend is one of only 5,000 produced.

Another little cracker, this 25 Years Old Bushmills bottling was released in 2023 to mark the 415th anniversary of obtaining a licence to distil Bushmills. matured in Bourbon barrels and Sherry butts for between four and six years before finishing in first-fill Ruby Port pipes for the final 21 years.

These are only a few of the lots in our August 2025 Auction, to view more, visit clickwhiskyauctions.com. Register to bid. Remember, you’ve got to be in it to win it! Auction ends this evening  (Sunday 17^th August) from 8pm UK time.

Fort William and Campbeltown are two of Scotland’s better known west coast towns. The intrepid explorers that we are we’ve visited both and brought back some exceptional whisky. No fridge magnets or cuddly highland cows for us.

When not exploring the westernmost points on the map we’ve been doing a little blending, and we think you might enjoy what we’ve been up to.

Campbeltown

We’re not ones to use superlatives or exaggeration but our Campbeltown Mega Blend might be the best thing to come out of Kintyre since Paul McCartney noticed mist rolling in from the sea. We’ve taken whisky from all the working distilleries in Campbeltown and blended them into something special. This isn’t just a blend, this is a mega blend. Each whisky was aged for a minimum of 9 years and each brings something special to the palate. There are only a few hundred bottles, we wish we could have made more.

A couple of new dogs

A new Wee Mongrel and a Drookit Dug for 2025. The Drookit Dug is what we call our session dram, something really good that you don’t need to save for a special occasion. We created this with ourselves in mind, for evenings when a couple of friends drop round for a catch up. It’s a mix of malt and grain whiskies created from the same parcel of stock as before, but each has had another year to mature. One of the interesting aspects of Drookit Dug is it’s 45.2% vol but still cask strength, and created from whisky aged for a minimum of 9 years.

Our Wee Mongrel has a louder bark. With more than a hint of sherry this is fully sherry cask matured, refill Oloroso butt and 1st fill Pedro Ximenez hogshead with whisky aged for at least 22 years. It’s cask strength and very, very good. We believe this is our finest Wee Mongrel to date, let us know if you agree. We also think it’ll be our last Wee Mongrel for the foreseeable future. The whiskies we use are now so expensive it’s becoming cost prohibitive. We’ll see.

The highest peak

Iconic, bigger than anything in the country and quite the challenge, but enough about our famous rally win a few months back, instead let us introduce you to our Ben Nevis single malt. Ben Nevis has such a unique distillate character, it’s here in abundance but beautifully balanced with the wood, rounded by 26 years of maturation. The Ben Nevis distillery sits in the shadow of the UK’s highest mountain at Fort William. While most people return with blisters and knee problems we picked up a rather special 1999 hogshead. This is an exceptional single cask, single malt. Ben Nevis’s Japanese owners wisely keep most of their whisky for themselves, but we know a man who knows a man and were fortunate to get this little gem. We even managed to stop Chris from mentioning the war…

Ben Nevis 1999  Aged 26 Years

Aged beautifully in an ex-bourbon hogshead so there’s only 220 of these. Don’t delay. We avoided the obvious stereotypes and have Koi carp on the label as a gentle nod to the owners of Ben Nevis distillery.

Wee Mongrel

2025’s Wee Mongrel is a sherry finished stunner, if we do say so ourselves. A blend with a minimum age of 22 years there are, and will only ever be, 497 bottles. Probably our last Wee Mongrel we are sorry to say.

Campbeltown Mega Blend

Specially selected single malt from every working distillery in Campbeltown, expertly blended by our own fair hands. 1st fill bourbon Glen Scotia, 12 and 16yo Kilkerran and 10 and 21yo Springbank.

Drookit Dug

It’s back for 2025, but not for long… A perfectly balanced blend of grain and malt that have each been matured for a further 12 months. 45.2% ABV cask strength. At only £45 we think it’s perfectly priced as well.

On Our Travels

We’ll be in Sweden in September, sharing stories about our spirits and asking what the rallying is like to anyone we meet. We’ll be doing something similar in Denmark in October. Check our social media for news on venues and dates nearer the time.

We’re also attending the Glasgow Whisky Festival on November 8th. If you’re at any event we’re at please do come over and say ‘hello’, while we know we’re extremely important now we still like to make time for the little people…

LIMITED NUMBERS AVAILABLE

As ever at Little Brown Dog we are only able to bottle a small number of each of our whisky releases. We choose them carefully, each one is a whisky we’d drink ourselves, each one is different, there’s something special about it, that’s why we chose it. We like nothing better than talking about whisky and answering any questions you might have, so find us on social media. All of our available releases are on our website too.

View all products

Over the past few weeks we’ve shared the exciting opportunity to own a private cask of Kingsbarns whisky — and the response has been incredible. Whether you’ve been dreaming of a smooth ex-Bourbon barrel or the rich depths of an ex-Sherry hogshead, this is your moment to claim one and watch your own whisky mature in our bonded warehouses.

Your cask includes:

• 10 years’ storage & insurance
• Online system to manage and view your cask
• Sample requests throughout maturation

If you’ve been meaning to join our cask community, now’s the time — once these are gone, they’re gone. Reserve your cask below. If you would like any more information or to discuss your options, please email: casks@kingsbarnsdistillery.com

Slàinte,
The Kingsbarns Team