Why we are in love with whisky …

Before we go on, dinnae get me wrong, we are no Jakies (A scottish word for an alcoholic/drunk. Can usually be found living in a cardboard box wearing a worn out leather jacket and an unshaven mush.. ‘Those jakies downstairs won’t shut the flip up, one of them was lying unconscious at the gate this morning with an empty bottle of Buckie.’), no – we love the golden brew for many reasons; its taste, its looks, how each is different (take note vodka), its various monetary values, its industry people and lastly – maybe most importantly, the whisky lovers we meet on our tours!

Liz and I meet so many people in the course of a year, some once a year on tour, others many times a year at distilleries, fab people such as Andrew at Edradour, Emma and Iain at Glen Moray, aye and the lovely Linzi where we get all our cars from – without a dram we would never have met most of these people. We love the whole process, the enquiry, the emails/phone calls, the tour design, the booking of said tours (more people we meet over and over are hotel people), and even better, people pay us to drive around our beautiful country enjoying ourselves! Does life get better?

Er aye it does, because when people (clients, guests, friends) pay us to drive them, included are many drams we just have to join in with! It is glorious research and development for our business, it’s a hard life but someone has to do it. Every tour is different, the weather changes, the light changes, obviously the seasons change, people in the car/coaches change, the only thing that remains are the distilleries, but again – we do not visit the same ones every tour. What I am trying to say is that I love what I do and if anyone oot there wishes to do my life – it is yours for £1,000,000. You can have the lifestyle, the websites, the contacts and my blessing. But you know what? Give me that £1 million and I will still be following the tours around, it’s now firmly rooted in our blood.

So much so that in the funny season (mid winter), Liz and myself take off for a few days and do our own tour (research and development). Every year we have a fabulous staff outing (Liz and myself, sorry to our other drivers oot there), this year we are away again to Auld Reekie for a few days, nice Georgian apartment booked, superb food, great laughs and fab times, all seasoned with a dram or two. Two whisky lovers let loose in the Capital to explore and have fun.

So what of this year? It was busy, really busy. With 90% of business dedicated to whisky tourism, are we tired? Aye, but we can sit doon and look at new whisky bottles looking back at us, waiting for the grand opening. We are looking forward to Edinburgh so we are, it’s a fitting reward. Before that we will be away to a whisky trip with a difference, fireworks, food, friends and drams on a boat doon in deepest Ayrshire. Liz and myself on a research trip of course, trying to find the kingsize hotel afterward in Irvine will be a new mystery. Next year – 2018. With around 6 months of tour dates already booked up, it looks like another year of total whisky pleasures once again! Would you like to join us? Get your bookings in as soon as, already Paul, Liz, Andy, Ron, Mark and Derek have diaries filling up. Grand tours, whisky festivals, schools, tastings and whisky experiences – see you sooon for some more water of life fun in the Scottish sun.

Blethered here by Paul. www.mcleanscotland.com  www.whiskytours.scot

Whisky comes to life at Whisky comes Christmas. It’s the perfect drink to celebrate with, to share with loved ones, and as the year draws to a close, it’s a drink to reminisce with. If you’re looking for that perfect present for the whisky lover in you life, let our gift guide help.

Cask No. 27.111 A coal bucket of marshmallows Age: 22 Years Price: £285

Cask No. 68.10 Delicious, delightful, decadent! Age: 7 Years Price: £48

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

Ralfy visits Campbeltown with Ralfy Review 699 – Glen Scotia 18yo @ 46%vol:

In their own words – Dan Szor, founder, Cotswolds Distillery

Dan Szor is the founder of Cotswolds Distillery. He left behind a career in finance to follow his love of whisky and build the first distillery in the area. After years of development and hard work, he and his team released their first whisky in October 2017.

‘It was June 2012. I was looking out of my bedroom window in my house in the Cotswolds. It was beautiful day, the wind was rippling through the barley and I had a thought: “why hasn’t anyone made whisky out of this barley?”‘

‘[Building a distillery] was just a passing idea and I pushed it out of my head for a few months. I went full circle and went back to the one person I knew in the industry, the guy who sold me my barrel of whisky. While at Bruichladdich on my annual barrel-hugging visit in May of 2013, I asked to see Jim McEwan. I said, “I’ve had this idea of building a distillery in the Cotswolds and I can’t think of anyone to tell me if it’s a crazy or not besides you.” He told me, “You’ve got to do it – follow your dream.”‘

‘What grows here is a mix of fruit and cereals. You get apples, pears, plums, damsons – the hedgerows are full of different things. And you get tons of cereal, including some of the best barley. To me, the flavours of a Cotswolds whisky ought to be predominantly fruit and grain’

‘How do you design that kind of whisky? For that we enlisted the help of the late, great Jim Swan, who was a integral part of the team, even as short as his time with us unfortunately was. He was immensely important and he will live on in our whisky’

‘In terms of imbuing the whisky with a sense of place and terroir, it all starts with the barley, which true to my original vision/epiphany moment is all locally grown’

‘Another thing that’s cool is that we are, to my knowledge, one of only two whiskies in all of Great Britain that are in production and on sale that are 100% floor malted. The other one is Springbank, so we’re in good company’

‘[Jim Swan] felt very strongly that it was all about fruit: a good fruity new make will make a good whisky. For Jim, that started in the mash tun with a very long four-day fermentation. Why is four days important? Your alcohol is created in about two days, but its the third and the fourth day which provide you with a lot of what will create the esters [chemicals that create fruity flavours] in your whisky. The best time to inhale our wash is day four. You get these amazing banana, fruit salad and pineapple notes coming off and they come through in the distillation’

‘Our stills are called Mary and Janis. We’ve not gone with posh English names – you get a lot of Prudences and Constances and Patiences in the gin world – we’ve gone with American rock instead. Mary is Proud Mary, because she keeps on burning (she’s our wash still), and Janis is Janis Joplin, because we take a little piece of her heart every day’

‘The biggest part of the story and where Jim had a big effect was in the wood. He personally designed the barrel which is responsible for most of the flavour profile of our flagship whisky – the STR: shaved, toasted and recharred. You take a wine barrel and make it into a whisky barrel by charring’

‘Every six months we get a shipping container of incredibly juicy first-fill bourbon barrels. When they come to us they’ve never been disassembled and have only just been dumped – you could get high from just standing in the container’

‘It was my decision to combine the STRs with first-fill bourbon casks. We experimented with lots of different ratios and settled on 70:30 – our flagship whisky is 70% STR and 30% first-fill bourbon’

‘In terms of where we’re going, we’ll be peppering the world with fun, thought-provoking, interesting and novel small-batch stuff, hopefully cask strength. But in terms of what our flagship whisky will be 20 years from now, I don’t know. I’m just hoping I’ll be around to make that call’

‘Why do all of this? Because it’s fun. If you can’t have fun doing this, then why are you in this business? There are much easier ways of making money in this world’

‘A big part of the reason for doing this was a change of life. Moving out to the Cotswolds is a funny thing to do for a guy who grew up on 98th and Madison in New York. I don’t regret it in the slightest’

You can also sign up to receive a notification when the Cotswolds Single Malt whisky is back in stock – our first delivery sold out in days.

Notre Dram de Paris

Our Paris boutique is one of the most stylish whisky shops in the world and it has the whisky to match! With incredible bottles including rare and limited editions also available on our French website, you needn’t book a flight to get your hands on these whiskies.

International shipping available Just click ‘Translate this page’ in your browser

Yamazaki Mizunara 18 Year Old 2017

This 18 year old single malt from Japan’s Yamazaki distillery is aged exclusively in Mizunara oak casks – a rare and sought after species of oak which grows only in a few districts of Japan, central and northern China, Korea, eastern Mongolia and eastern Siberia. The result is an expression with an exquisite balance of subtlety, refinement and complexity, limited to just 1,000 bottles worldwide and presented in a case made from recycled Suntory casks.

A fragrant and oily top-note of aromatherapy oil and sandalwood on the nose, before mangoes and over-ripe bananas emerge. The palate is dry and nutty overall with rich walnut and nutmeg.

€1,750 Buy Now

Glen Grant 18 Year Old

The award-winning Glen Grant 18 Year Old has all the characteristics of a modern Speyside whisky: it’s refined, silky, exuberant and well-balanced. The nose is delicate with floral aromas and some vanilla to the fore. The influence of the wood is then revealed with notes of sweet spices and pastries. On the palate, subtle notes of caramelised cereals, raisin and vanilla emerge, before hazelnut and sweet spices in the long finish.

€115 Buy Now

Macallan Ruby

1995 Miltonduff 22 Year Old “Old Particular” K&L Exclusive Single Barrel Cask Strength Single Malt Whisky (750ml) $89.99 View

Lagavulin “2016 Edition” 12 Year Old Natural Cask Strength Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky (750ml) (Previously $130) $99.99 View 

Ardbeg “Twenty Something” 23 Year Old Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky (750ml) $549.99 View

Ralfy has audio issues with Ralfy Review 698 – Glencadam 10yo @ 46%vol

It’s whisk(e)y season, folks! We’re less than three days away from Thanksgiving and I know a number of you finicky drinkers out there are getting your selections together for the big holiday feast. I’ve got four new ones for you today that might be of interest. The first two are fresh from Scotland’s Speyside region, while the second pair are single barrel exclusives from none other than Dickel. First off, a new single cask of 22 year old Miltonduff; a gristy malt that packs quite the punch.

Miltonduff 22 Year Old “Old Particular” K&L Exclusive Single Barrel Cask Strength Single Malt Whisky $89.99 – If you’re tired of the same sweet vanilla and soft stonefruit profile of your typical Highland malt, I invite you to check out this 22 year old single barrel release from Miltonduff: a Speyside distillery that sees most of its malt go into the Chivas Blended portfolio. At 57.6% ABV cask strength and with a malty, gristy note, this is a robust and heavy whisky that very much tastes like malted barley smells, but with added notes of dark chocolate and cacao that carries over from the malting process. Intermixed with the malt and mocha notes are hints of toasted nuts and new oak with a classic Scotch whisky finish that is again accentuated from the huge proof. Mixed nuts and roasted cocoa flavors are the calling card of Miltonduff and this 22 year old cask offers both of those profiles with a bold and assertive character. It’s definitely not your typical gentle, graceful Highland malt. This is big time stuff.

Then there’s the new Macallan “Classic Cut” 2017 Limited Edition, a 58.4% ABV distillery release that drinks much like Macallan’s version of the Aberlour A’Bunadh: big sherry, big proof. This is dark and unctuous on the finish. Sherry heads will be pleased.

Macallan Classic Cut “2017 Limited Edition” Speyside Single Malt Scotch Whisky $79.99 – This limited edition Macallan harkens back to an older and much lauded regular release, The Macallan Cask Strength. Adopting the royal crimson colored label -a color made famous by its predecessor – a warning of the impending intensity of this exceptional Highland Single malt whisky. The Macallan Classic Cut is aged exclusively in sherry seasoned oak from Jerez and bottled without the addition of any water prior to bottling. This preserves the extraordinary character of this most exalted of Highland malts. The higher proof adds texture and depth, highlighting the quality sherry and bold malt flavors produced at the Macallan. Like all Macallan single malt, the Classic Cut is bottled without the use of color additives.

You have to understand, when someone offers you nine year old single barrels of 100+ proof Bourbon that you can sell for around forty bucks, you say YES! You say yes as many times as they’ll let you. You take as much of it as they’ll sell you and you ask for seconds, thirds, fourths, and fifths.

Sure, Dickel is Tennessee whiskey, not officially Bourbon, but there are plenty of people out there buying it independently and selling it as Bourbon (Belle Meade, Barrell, etc.) because technically it is Bourbon. Just don’t tell that to anyone in Tennessee.

Back to my original point: these single barrels of Dickel are older, richer, tastier, and sweeter than any whiskies available in any other distillery-direct single barrel program right now. Yet, somehow, they’re around $20 less expensive per bottle than similarly-aged casks from Four Roses or the Elijah Craig Barrel Proof.

I dare you to do a comparison, side by side, of our latest Four Roses barrel with one of these two new arrivals from Dickel. I did it blind for fun this past week and I had a rough time figuring out which was which.

George Dickel “K&L Exclusive” 9 Year Old Single Barrel #L7233K1008″ Tennessee Whiskey $44.99 – Barrel #1008 is like a big bag of toasted caramel corn with power and intensity from the bold proof. Those who love the sweetness of classic Tennessee whiskey with the punch of cask strength Bourbon will be elated with a finish of sweet vanilla and hearty baking spices.

George Dickel “K&L Exclusive” 9 Year Old Single Barrel #L7234K1004″ Tennessee Whiskey $44.99 – Barrel #1004 has strong aromas of herbaceous, peppery spices on the nose with heavy pencil shavings and toasted oak. It’s decidedly less sweet than all of the other Dickel barrels we’ve featured in 2017 with a robust richness that finishes like a fine bottle of Four Roses. Basically, if you’re looking for a 9 year old bottle of cask strength OBSV for $20 less than what it normally would go for, this is a fine substitute for serious bourbon fans. For serious Bourbon fans.

That covers it for this week. Have a very Happy Thanksgiving. We’ll be back with another Whisk(e)y News after the holiday, until then be sure to check out The Spirits Journal for updates on other exciting spirits hitting our shelves.

– David Driscoll

https://youtu.be/Phd8bzzFxqs

Perfect is an overly used word. It’s used to describe films, albums, people and isn’t always used in the correct way, however, THIS WHISKY IS PERFECT!!! PERFECT! I’ve never ever used that word to describe a liquid ever before. Cask strength, bourbon cask Lagavulin – too good to say no, i’m buying this bottle and it is without doubt one of the greatest purchases that I will ever make in my whisky drinking life to date. That’s that, by one, open it, enjoy it and thank me in the comments! Cheers!

It’s all systems go at Wolfburn distillery, with new expressions being bottled as fast as we can manage – and half the staff away on road trips at whisky shows and exhibitions all around the globe (Paris, Tokyo, Johannesburg and Zurich to name just four)! But we can’t complain – Wolfburn has had more visitors than ever in 2017, and the distillery has just been graded a three-star tourist attraction. We’ve made lots of new friends and we’re having a ton of fun making whisky. What’s not to like?

In this edition of the Laydown:

• Looking ahead: Kylver#3 is just around the corner…

• Morven is Launched! Wolfburn’s third permanent expression is finally here – a beautiful, lightly peated dram.

• Photo comp: Win a Wolfburn “three pack” (Northland, Aurora and Morven). Send us a pic of you or your friends/family enjoying a drop of the wolf somewhere fun or unusual.

Sláinte

The Wolfburn Team

PS: If you’re in the Thurso area, we’re holding an open day on Saturday 9th Dec, 10am-3pm – and we’ll be unveiling our Christmas special edition bottle. Hope to see you there.