Ralfy re-examines a classic blend with Ralfy Review 700 – Chivas Regal 12yo @ 40%vol: (re-reviewed 2017)

Whisky Wednesday – Amrut Peated Cask Strength

https://youtu.be/KOHeKxf3XZU

Indian whisky is a combination of the very familiar, teamed with exotic and different approaches to flavour and maturation. Amrut has always been a favourite of mine, this example uses peated European barley that is imported into India, distilled and matured by themselves – the bottled at cask strength, with this example anyway. Enjoy!

Glengoyne 1967 Christmas Day

A new and rare addition to our Collector’s Loft, this limited edition Highland single malt from Glengoyne distillery was distilled on Christmas Day in 1967. Only 2,500 bottles were produced in 1992 at a strength of 43% abv, each one individually numbered by hand. This is bottle number 913.

£799 Buy Now

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