Dear Society Members,

I hope things are well with you all and the Winter weather hasn’t been too harsh on you so far! We have had a lot of rain in Campbeltown recently causing the worst flooding in around 30 years but everyone has been kept safe and the whisky has not be harmed so there is no need to panic!

I’m just sending a quick newsletter today with the latest releases from Springbank Distillery. These will be the final three new releases for 2014.

We have two new bottlings due for release on Monday (17th November). Firstly we have the Springbank Green. This is a 12 year old whisky which was made with organic barley, been fully matured in bourbon casks and has been bottled at 46% ABV. There will be 9,000 bottles available for worldwide distribution. The retail price for the Springbank Green is £60.00 and unfortunately Society Members will not receive the 10% discount on this. The tasting notes for the Springbank Green are as follows:

Nose: This whisky has a real Springbank nose, earthy, peat with a salty coastal influence.

Palate: The palate is fruity; apricots and peaches are accompanied by buttery, creamy nutty shortbread. This is a lip licking whisky, oily and chewy.

Finish: The finish is long, smooth and complex with a lingering sweetness and saltiness.

In Autumn 2015, we will release another version of the Springbank Green, again made with organic barley. This time however, it will be 13 years old and 100% matured in sherry casks. More information will of course be given nearer the time of release next year.

The second new release next week is the eagerly awaited Springbank 25 year old. This has been matured in a combination of bourbon and sherry casks before being married in port casks for the final few months of maturation. It has been bottled at 46% ABV and is limited to only 1,200 bottles for worldwide distribution. The price of this is £350.00 and again, unfortunately there will be no discount offered on this. The tasting notes for the Springbank 25yo are as follows:

Nose: The nose is rich with a peated port influence. It’s redolent of the dunnage warehouse in which it was matured. Fruity too, but this time berries to the fore: blackberries, cranberries and strawberries.

Palate: The port wine influence is perfectly balanced with flavours of sherry, plum jam, blood oranges and pink grapefruit.

Finish: The finish is long, soft and elegant, with earthy, peaty and woody qualities.

We will release another batch of the Springbank 25yo in Autumn 2015 and again, more information will be given closer to the time.

As mentioned, both of these bottlings will be released this coming Monday. As well as being distributed throughout our UK and worldwide stockists, they will of course be available in our three UK Cadenhead shops as well as our European Cadenhead shops in due course.

If you would like to order the Springbank Green then let me know and I can organise this for you. The Springbank 25yo however is going to be extremely limited (to get a idea of this – only 180 bottles will remain within the UK) so if you are interested in buying this then please contact our shop directly as I will not be able to keep track of how many they have sold and I imagine it will sell out very quickly. The Campbeltown shop number is +44 (0) 1586 55 1710 (option 1).

The third and final new release which is going to be bottled in the next couple of weeks meaning it should be available start-mid December is Spirit of Freedom – “the 45” blend consisting of 45 different whiskies from across Scotland. This is being bottled following the Scottish Independence Referendum on September 18th 2014, in support of the 45% of the voting population who said “Yes”. This will retail at £25.00 per bottle and Society members will receive their discount on this meaning it will cost members £22.50. If you would like to reserve a bottle of this then please let me know as I can add you to a reserve list and contact you when it becomes available.

Anyway, that is all for the moment – please contact me if you have any questions.

Have a good weekend!

Best regards,

Mairi

Mairi Paterson

For the Springbank Society

To join the Springbank Society please contact them at society@springbankwhisky.com

Port Charlotte Islay Barley 2014 Release 50%

Just £49.94

The first Port Charlotte released from Islay’s Bruichladdich ever to be made with 100% Islay barley, giving this whisky an ultra provenance. The whisky is peated to 40 PPM, and bottled using Islay spring water from the Octomore field farmer James Brown.

Although heavily peated, this is an elegant and floral single malt, lighter in style and more approachable than others of the genre. This is natural whisky that has spent its entire life maturing in American and European oak casks in our salt-soaked warehouses by the shore. It is bottled at 50% abv without chill filtration or the addition of caramel food colouring, using water from a natural spring that rises on Octomore Farm above the village.

BUY NOW

Strathisla 57 Year Old – 1957 Private Collection Ultra

Bottled and released under the prestigious Private Collection Ultra label by Gordon & MacPhail is this 57 Year Old Strathisla!  Said to be the oldest Strathisla single malt whisky ever released, only 61 of these beautifully-designed decanters have been filled. Each decanter has being individually numbered, with the whisky details engraved and in-filled with silver colour. A silver-plated neck collar and stopper adorns each decanter. Wood, metal and glass are combined in a striking and innovative way to protect and display the whisky; the decanter nestles in a glass-bottomed pack, revealing a hint of the whisky colour. A book written by whisky writer Jonny McCormick is also included, telling the story of Gordon & MacPhail and the whisky itself…

Tasting Note by Jonny McCormick

Nose:
Slight nuttiness, pecan, walnut, and there’s subtle smoke twisting around too. The fruit is solid and fresh: black cherry, damson, cooking apple, and raisin.

Palatae:
Soft and ethereal at first, then a tantalising touch of bitterness, not too much, but complemented by the fruit sweetness swelling around the sides.

With water:
Cautiously, this finesses the sweetness and fruit, but does not eliminate those weightier, chocolate notes. They are boosted on the palate however, with more coffee, chocolate and black fruits apparent, and the loss of the bitterness.

Comments:
Strathisla whisky has never been more mature to offer a comparison, so this is utterly unique. Suffice to say, this magnificent, beguiling beauty offers all the dimensions and sophistication you would hope for in a greatly matured malt whisky. It is a rare and unforgettable experience.

£6250.00
(£5208.33 ex vat)

Click here to purchase Strathisla 57 Year Old – 1957

The Whisky Shop Exclusive Glenfiddich 1992

Glenfiddich, founded in 1887 by William Grant and family-run to this day, is perhaps the most famous of all of Scotland’s single malts, and is equally famous for the rarity of its single cask bottlings.

Recently, several members of The Whisky Shop team and one lucky customer, Neil Cromarty, joined Glenfiddich Malt Master, Brian Kinsman, to select a single cask Glenfiddich to be bottled exclusively for The Whisky Shop. Watch how they got on here.

The Glenfiddich Rare Collection 1992 Single Cask is now available to order exclusively from The Whisky Shop and is limited to only 200 bottles.

Glenfiddich 1992

The first release from the Glenfiddich Rare Collection. The chosen cask is a refill bourbon cask filled on 13th March 1992, yielding only 200 bottles. Bottled at 56.3% abv exclusively for The Whisky Shop.

Click here to buy

Scotland – Single Malt Scotch

• Oban 15 Year Distillers Edition Montilla Fino Single Malt Whisky 750ml ($99.99)
• Alexander Murray “Bon Accord” Single Malt Whisky 750ml – 9 available ($31.99)

K&L Wine Merchants
http://www.klwines.com
Phone: 877-KLWines (toll free 877-559-4637)
Email: wine@klwines.com
San Francisco, Redwood City, Hollywood CA

ORDER NOW FOR CHRISTMAS!

ORDER NOW TO RECEIVE YOUR PERSONALISED ENGRAVED DECANTER FOR CHRISTMAS.

We can personalise our beautiful decanter bottles with a design or wording of your own.

Words, crests, images, etc. We will then fill it with a whisky of your choosing (English Whisky co. only), pack it in a red tube and dispatch.

Prices from £60 (prices vary depending on the type of whisky, quantity of engraving)

Enquires to sarah@englishwhisky.co.uk

FREE HIPFLASK with every order that includes a bottle of 70cl English Whisky Co. own brand purchased before Christmas*

*Free gift subject to availabilty and while stocks last

Deanston 1994 Whiskies of Scotland 55.4% ABV | 50cl

Our own label “Whiskies of Scotland” Deanston 1994 55.4% picked up the BRONZE award in this year’s Scottish Field Whisky Challenge with an impressive 14.95 points out of 20 in the £40 – £80 price category. Bottled in 2013, this expression of Deanston is arguably the finest I had ever tasted from that particular distillery so decided that it merited entry into this year’s competition.

The Deanston was up against stiff competition too with Glenmorangie’s Companta 46% winning the category Gold with 16.15 points and the Glendronach 18 Year Old 46% taking the silver award with 15.4 points out of 20. All of the nosing and tasting is completely blind so you don’t even know which category a whisky is entered into, which makes it very fair to everyone.

Deanston 1994 55.4% 19 year old:

Official Tasting Note
Nose: Full and sweet, fruit salad, gentle oak notes, vanilla and coconut with hints of sherry. Traces of milky chocolate and cappuccino too. Palate: Rich and spicy, quite full and oily. Rich toffee, caramel, bananas, vanilla and milk chocolate and hints of sherry again.

My Tasting Note On The Day
Light and buttery. Kiwi and passion fruit, round and balanced. A little closed but intensely sweet and sugary with amazing balance and a blanket of honey.

Other Judges Comments
“Fairly shy aromas – honey and waxy lemons – with a sugary sweetness and hints of green apple”. “A powerhouse: lots of well integrated spice and aromatics wrapped in a fruity, gently sherried whisky cask”.

Slainte, Ronnie

Buy Now Price £46.67 ex VAT  £56.00 inc VAT

News from the Distillery Team:

The winter season is always a busy one for James and the team at The Distillery.  When we wrote to you in the summer, building work was on hold for our new warehouse number 5 whilst the Golden Eagles welcomed their young.  We are pleased to announce that they are now the parents of two new eaglets and building work is back full steam ahead!  The plans for our VIP Tasting room are well on track and our order for two new stills has been placed.  We are looking forward to taking delivery of these in 2016 and increasing our capacity in line with the projected demand in the future.

Brand new warehouse 6 is serving us well and is now home to our short term cask storage and cask finish whiskies.  It has provided us with just the flexibility we needed in this area and we are delighted with the progress we have made this year. For the time being, the winter weather seems to be slowly creeping up on us and this is the time of year that our Distillery team work on distilling our peated Single Malt, The Machrie Moor, just before the closure in January for our maintenance and cleaning work.  The smell of fruity peated whisky in the air on a crispy winter morning is quite something!

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Give in to the attraction of the wonderful whiskies in November’s Outturn!

For full tasting notes of November’s releases please visit http://www.smws.ca/ but for now let our brief bottle notes pull you in:

Cask No. 1.176 Zesty ginger lime cooler $185.90
16 years old; refill hogshead; 55.4% Spicy & sweet
Initially fresh green saplings, apricots and peaches followed by old-fashioned rose water perfume. The taste neat has flavours of Weetabix cereal, red apples and the freshness of a ‘Zesty Ginger-Lime Cooler.’ With water, preparing a fruit punch and enjoying a minty grapefruit sorbet.

Cask No. 64.53 Retro and kitsch $161.90
12 years old; 1st fill barrel; 57.2% Young & spritely
Like stepping back to granny’s home. Kahlua, homemade lemonade and Pledge. Stewed apple and coffee chocolates. Lip tingling clip around the ear with root ginger. Grapefruit with a sugar crust, Jamaica loaf. Grandfather’s old vinyl records and warm leather car seats completed the picture.

Cask No. 39.92 Dessert wine and smoking jacket $231.90
23 years old; refill hogshead; 49.5% Sweet, fruity & mellow
To start on the nose, honey-covered toast, chocolate and coconut. To taste, crispy bacon, pancakes and maple syrup. With water, pork chops followed by Eton Mess on the nose. To taste, darkly roasted coffee, ginger cake and brown sugar.

Cask No. 9.82 Breathe in long! $251.90
25 years old; refill butt; 52.1% Old & dignified
The aroma is like a meditative walk through a summer garden with the taste of melting chocolate and honey dripping from a wooden spoon. A tiny drop of water adds rich vanilla custard sauce and an overall great balance of sweet and spicy flavours – Soporific!

Cask No. 4.183 Something for everyone $157.90
13 years old; 1st fill barrel; 62.1% Lightly peated
Multi-faceted nose; apple flan, heather honey, Miso soup, briny, smoky, ashy and exotic cedar. The taste is an intriguing balance of sweet and savoury; treacle tart, peanuts and balsamic tahini salad dressing. Water adds maritime notes and in the flavour garlic Indian Naan bread.

Cask No. 93.57 Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of this! $225.90
21 years old; refill sherry butt; 58.3% Oily & coastal
The nose provides appeal from sherry-soaked Chrismas cake and balsamic-glazed pears – also toffee, tobacco, burlap and smoke, evocative of old sailing ships. The palate has cinnamon, nutmeg, iced gingerbread, toffee apples, sweet sherry, honey-glazed ribs, vanilla, wood, leather and ash.

Cask No. 127.39 Intensely tasty $156.90
11 years old; refill sherry butt; 66.7% Heavily peated
The nose has tobacco leaf, dried fish, smoke, Germolene antiseptic, soap in a coal scuttle, dark honey, bacon and caraway-flavoured rye bread. The palate suggests sea shells, oily mackerel, treacle, liquorice, Tabasco, toasted sesame seeds with honey and deep-fried Mars Bars. Wowee!

www.smws.ca

Introducing The 1824 Masters Series

They say all good things come in threes, and today we’re rather excited to introduce not one, not two but three stunning new whiskies, Rare Cask, Reflexion and No.6. The three whiskies, together with The Macallan M, complete the incredible 1824 Masters Series.

Our whisky maker Bob Dalgarno has expertly crafted each of the whiskies to create the Series which truly honours the beautiful spectrum of natural colour in our unique single malt, bringing to life the interaction of our peerless spirit and exceptional oak casks. Sitting above the innovative 1824 Series, The 1824 Masters Series will take whisky lovers on a journey through increasingly dark and complex single malts beginning with Rare Cask followed by Reflexion then No.6 and finally to the pinnacle of the entire Series, M.

Reflexion and No.6 will be available worldwide, whilst Rare Cask will initially be available exclusively in the USA and China from specialist whisky retailers and selected bars. Explore the range at The Macallan.com