Whisky in Your Pocket
Publication date: 18th November 2010

Waverley Books Limited
Book Publishers

World’s bestselling pocket guide to Scotch returns after 12 years

The single Scotch malt category owes much of its increasing popularity to a couple of Scottish wine and spirit merchants who persuaded the big London hotels, restaurants and clubs to start stocking single malts back in the late 1960 and 70s. They were the Milroy brothers, Jack and Wallace, who made their forays into the on-trade from their tiny Soho Wine Market. In the mid-1980s Wallace was approached by Neil Wilson, a  whisky writer and publisher, who suggested he should write a pocket guide to single malts for his fledgling list. The result was Wallace Milroy’s Malt Whisky Almanac and it was to go on to sell over 300,000 copies worldwide.

After seven editions Wallace and Neil felt that it had served its purpose and it was retired in 1998. Jack went on to sell the Soho Wine Market and Wallace became a consultant to the trade. But in 2009 Neil and Wallace decided that the time was right to bring the almanac back, but this time to cover grain and blended whiskies as well. Their reasons were simple: confused consumers were growing in number and a new entry-level pocket guide to the world of Scotch was desperately needed. The published guides that had followed the original almanac had raised the level of information and subjective opinion on whiskies, but they felt that newcomers to the subject were increasingly confused and bewildered by what was on offer.

The result is Whisky In Your Pocket, which details 139 single malts (including Bushmills from Northern Ireland), 10 single grains, 4 blended malts, 2 blended grains and 16 blended Scotch whiskies. Illustrated with bottle shots, regional and distillery location maps throughout, the result is a comprehensive thumbnail picture of what consumers can expect when they take their first foray into the amazing world of Scotch whisky.

Whisky In Your Pocket by Wallace Milroy and Neil Wilson
Publication date: 18th November 2010
ISBN: 978-1-84934-023-6
Price: £7.99
192 pages, full colour throughout