WD Cadenhead
Abbey Whisky is proud to now be stocking the excellent whisky from Scotland’s oldest indie bottler, WM Cadenhead. Superb small batch and single cask bottlings now in stock, further items arriving next week.
Good morning, folks! Springbank, a distillery with loyal followers all over the world, as well as a host of awards and a status that names it as one of, if not thee finest distillery in the world. It’s certainly one of my favorites. This bottling has been purchased by, Loch Fyne Whiskies, based in Inverary. They’ve bought the remainder of it from a private collector who had bought the whole cask a few years ago. Twenty-one years old and bottled at 51.6%, it’s certainly a whisky for lovers of the distillery to flock towards, not a bad price either. Enjoy!
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JANUARY AUCTION LIVE – CORTI BOTTLINGS KICKING 2017 OFF IN STYLE!
2016 was a busy but fantastic year for Whisky Auctioneer! It was all pretty exhausting to be honest but there’s no time to relax, our first auction of the new year has arrived and with it comes some simply stunning bottles! A superb way to kick off 2017, it has got us re-energised and raring to go!
We have some big things happening at Whisky Auctioneer in 2017 and we’re excited to share details of this with you soon! But no matter what else is going on we guarantee that our main priority is and always will be bringing you the best of the old and rare, collectable and drinkable bottles out there!
They don’t come much older, rarer or more collectable than the legendary Corti Brother bottlings! An exceptional range of whiskies, we are lucky enough to feature nine stunning examples in our January Auction, including an awe inspiring 1965 vintage Clynelish and a superb 1963 vintage Imperial.
HIRSCH 1974 16 YEAR OLD BOURBON / 1991 & 2003 RELEASES
So good it inspired the book, ‘The Best Bourbon You’ll Never Taste’. Well here is your chance to taste it! Distilled in 1974 and bottled from a single 400 barrel batch.
GLENFARCLAS FAMILY COLLECTOR SERIES
6 bottles, each representing one of the six generations of the Grant Family, owners of Glenfarclas Distillery since 1865. Released in limited numbers the collection includes a fantastic 58 year old 1956 vintage!
A stupendously rare bourbon, one of only 100 bottles released released by Buffalo Trace Distillery late last year. They offered a total of 200 bottles across 3 vintages exclusively to non-profit organisations in order for them to raise money for their causes. Beautifully presented and named in honour of the distillery’s original name, Old Fashioned Copper.
January features the exotic sounding 1986 vintage, ‘Coconut peapods and tropical hothouses’ and the aromatic 1990 vintage, ‘Spice box and orange oil’, 2 superb bottlings of Yoichi!
J&A MITCHELL STAFF EXCLUSIVE CHRISTMAS BOTTLINGS
Alright, so we’re a month late with these. 8 extremely limited bottles that were only available to shareholders, directors and staff of Springbank and Kilkerran. A very rare opportunity!
Auction runs Friday 27th January to Monday 6th February.
There is no registration fee, our commission structure is very competitive and we offer worldwide shipping. For our terms and conditions please click here.
Happy bidding!
COLLECTIONS – UK AND FURTHER AFIELD!
As ever we will be out and about in the coming months making collections, see dates below. Get in touch if you have bottles to be picked up and we will add you to the list!
Edinburgh – 10th February
Inverness & Speyside – 14th February
Aberdeen – 15th February
Glasgow – 18th/19th February
Orkney – 21st & 22nd February
London & M6 – 27th February – 2nd March
Not in the UK and have bottles you would like to send to us? We can arrange courier collections globally! Get in touch today to find out more.
Ralfy introduces the benefits of whiskybase.com in Ralfy Review 622 – Ardmore 12yo Port Cask finish
Jim Murray chats to Stuart of The Whisky Exchange
In the second part of our exclusive interview, Jim Murray explains his strict rules for choosing his World Whisky of the Year, his response to critics of the Whisky Bible, and his retirement plans.
How do you go about tasting for your Whisky Bible?
It averages out at 1,200 [whiskies]. It’s a good day if I’ve done 20, I’m concentrating so hard. I’ve had a number of girlfriends from different countries, and come the evening, they go quiet, because they’ve spent all day translating in their head. I’m a translator – that’s what I do with whisky. I listen to the whisky and I translate it into English.
When it’s something like the World Whisky of the Year, I taste it at three different times of day, always at the same temperature. And before I start, I always test my taste buds with something I know. If I’m not getting the right response, I’ll leave it for 90 minutes or two hours and come back and taste it again. If I fail a third time, I won’t taste that day.
If any of my staff have anything remotely like a cold, they come nowhere near me. If I pop over to the pub, the landlord will tell me if someone has a cold and I’ll walk out. I don’t even have sex during this time because from kissing you can pick up something, so it’s really miserable. But I will not taste a whisky if I don’t trust my taste buds.
Also, no cooking in this place, none whatsoever. If I have hot food, it is brought in and I eat outside. Nothing with spices. I eat the most bland food – fish, boiled potatoes, nothing with lingering flavour. If I go to Kentucky to taste, I hire a suite and I have one bedroom and a separate room [for tasting]. The staff are not allowed to go in there and clean, so I have a controlled area. Here, cleaners can’t come in and polish while I’m working. It’s control, control, control.
Have your tastes changed over the years?
Not at all. I still don’t like whiskies which are too much of one thing, and that includes peaty. Or, if you can only taste the sherry and nothing else, even if it’s clean, then you might as well buy a bottle of sherry. The reason [Yamazaki Sherry Cask 2013] won was because it was the most extraordinary ‘intertwangling’ between the oak – big oak – and the most gorgeous sherry. It was the closest thing to Macallan of the mid-1970s.
Scotch whiskies haven’t won your top award for a while – why not?
They’re not winning because there are whiskies out there that are better. It’s like joining the European Cup. You may be absolutely brilliant in your country but then you play against other teams and suddenly you melt. You just haven’t quite got what they’ve got to lift it, and Scotland’s been a bit like that.
Scotland has two problems: they’ve got the sherry-cask problem and they’ve got a problem with older bourbon casks, because older bourbon casks get worn out. In Kentucky, they were saying ‘Why are we spending massive amounts of money to get this wood in absolutely fantastic condition but we can only use the barrel once?’
And by the time it gets to Scotland, a lot of the good has been sucked out of it. Instead of it lasting three fills, by the time it’s getting to the end of the second, you start picking out a milky note where the chemicals that once upon a time would have been way back further into the wood are being leeched out far quicker, so the Scots are a bit unlucky from that point of view.
There’s a problem with [Scottish] blends, because the distillers have closed down so many grain distilleries that they are now much of a muchness. Absolute insanity. So, why aren’t they winning the prizes? Well, if they hadn’t closed down those grain distilleries and they hadn’t polluted so much of their whisky with sulphur, maybe they would be winning them, so they’ve got themselves to blame in some respects. But let’s get something absolutely straight: there is fantastic Scotch whisky; it’s just not winning the World Whisky of the Year.
Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible – the first edition was published in 2004
Talk us through the Bible front cover…
It’s Doctor Who! The 2017 edition marks 25 years of me being in the industry, so there’s a picture from about 23 years ago and an up-to-date one. The yellow eyes? A bit of fun. At the end of the day, you want to sell books, and if people do a double take, you’ve grabbed their attention. And people who know me know I’m a massive practical joker.
What do you say to critics of the Bible?
I get a bit cheesed off when people say I give an award for this and that because I’m on the take. These people don’t have a clue what I’m about; I believe in total honesty. When I gave World Whisky of the Year to a Canadian whisky [Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye], people said I did it for publicity. Selling books in Canada is virtually impossible! If you sell 5,000 books in Canada, it’s a bestseller. If we gave the award to a Scotch whisky company, we’d make far more money. So you get these idiots coming out with no idea about the reason why you give the award. There’s only one reason: because it’s the most complete, the most beautiful whisky I’ve tasted that year, wherever it’s from. The only criteria I look at is quality.
Michael Jackson, described by Jim as a ‘dear friend’
You were good friends with the late whisky writer Michael Jackson…
Michael was a beer guy – and a dear friend. We were both ex-Fleet Street; we had certain things in common and lots of things we didn’t have in common, but he was a terrific writer. He had a meeting with his publishers about a new book, and his editor said to him ‘What do you know about whisky?’ and Michael said he knew virtually nothing. But he could see that the amount of work he was getting from beer was drying up so he said: ‘I can learn.’ He fell in love with it [whisky], but it was never his passion. If I put a pint of Chiswick Bitter in front of him, his eyes would absolutely sparkle. If I put a Lagavulin – which he loved – in front of him, he would smile. But his eyes never sparkled, and that was a huge difference.
And what about the new crop of whisky writers – or rather, the lack of them?
When I first became a full-time whisky writer in 1992, there was virtually no internet; you had to do all your research the hard way. When I did Jim Murray’s Complete Book of Whisky, I had to do old-fashioned journalistic legwork to find out where all these distilleries were, so I went out and found them.
But now you get people on the internet who have probably been to three distilleries and get a bunch of whiskies sent to them and claim they’re experts. I don’t get that. I can’t get my head around what they’re thinking. I couldn’t get anything around their egos because there’s probably nothing big enough. I don’t read anything [on the internet] now, because I don’t want anything to influence what I think about a whisky. I used to, but I got so frustrated with what I was reading.
I think probably the most honest is Dominic Roskrow. I don’t always agree with what he says, which is great, because we’ve all got our own views on things, but you know that his passion is absolutely there and I admire that. Who’s the next Jim Murray? I don’t know. I’ve been looking, though.
No plans to retire, then?
As a Fleet Street journalist, I’m used to getting my head down and working solidly until the job was done. I’ve got no plans to retire, none whatsoever.
2002 vintage matured in sherry hogsheads before being bottled October 2016 for the Gordon & MacPhail Cask Strength series. A superb fruity and smoky number from the Speyside distillery established in 1898. £59.26 Nose: Sweet vanilla initially with subtle smoky notes. Stewed fruit aromas develop – cherry and raspberry – which mingle with milk chocolate aromas. Taste: Sweet and creamy with a touch of white pepper. Ripe plum, blackcurrant, and apple flavours combine with spicy cloves leading to a charred oak edge. William Teacher’s son Adam Teacher established Ardmore Distillery in 1898 at Kennethmont in Scotland’s Highland whisky region. He selected an ideal site to the south of Huntly with a plentiful supply of soft highland water from springs on the hills to the north and peat to hand. With Kennethmont railway station on the Great North of Scotland Railway was right next door. Now equipped with eight stills and continuing to supply a large proportion of its malt whiskey to blends, the official Ardmore single malt range, including Ardmore Taditional and Ardmore 12 year Port Wood, remains limited.
Ralfy shows off some collectable stuff with Ralfy Review 621 – collectable whiskies update 2017
Malt Messenger Bulletin – Year End Inventory Clearance Sale!
I hope you had a wonderful holiday season, and that January hasn’t been too hard on your New Year’s resolutions… The last week has been a whirlwind of events for yours truly, beginning with a very successful MS Calgary Whisky Festival last Thursday. The 6th Annual event held in the foyer of the Jack Singer, was a sellout with 550 participants and more than 265 whiskies featured.
Very early the next morning, I was off to Victoria, for the 12th annual Victoria Whisky Festival. I was honoured to have the opportunity to present one of the Friday night Grand Tastings. The Victoria Whisky Festival is Canada’s best whisky festival, drawing guests from all over North America, and brand ambassadors from all over the world! The event stretches over 4 days beginning with the Canadian Whisky Awards and concluding with a by invite only Distillers Dinner.
After 5 days of whisky tastings and associated shenanigans on the coast, I returned to Calgary on Burns Day, for our Burns Bash Mini Whisky Festival. The sold out event featured a range of nearly 100 KWM exclusive whiskies and was a big hit. No pipes or haggis this year, but plenty of great malts!
There are a couple of exciting new whiskies in to tell you about, before they disappear. Firstly we have a very tasty new anCnoc 24 Year, which is also amazing value at $210+GST. There is also a new Tawny Port cask of BenRiach, which is a bit of a beast. BenRiach 1998 Cask 10300 is a juicy and rich 18 year old single malt that appears to be only available in Alberta and BC. Further details on both whiskies and tasting notes can be found below.
The big news in this Malt Messenger Bulletin, is the announcement of our Year End Inventory Sale: Friday January 27 through Sunday January 29. We are doing a big inventory count on Monday, and frankly it will go a lot more quickly if we could just clear a few things out… All in stock wine is at least 15% off, all in stock whisky (except for the Scotch Malt Whisky Society) is least 10%-30% off, and all in stock Beer, Gin and Rum at least 5% off with some even bigger deals. The sale is in store and online only, just until Sunday. Full details, and all whiskies discounted more than 10% are listed below!
I hope this Malt Messenger Bulletin finds you well!
Sláinte!
Andrew Ferguson
Kensington Wine Market
PS- PS – Don’t forget you can follow me on Twitter:
@scotch_guy, Instagram: @thescotch_guy/
or @kwmwhisky and Facebook: facebook.com/scotch.guy.1
New Shelter Point Cask Strength
Very Limited!
A very spicy limited release of Canadian farm to bottle whisky composed of malt and rye. Bottled at cask strength after finishing in French oak.
$110
Glenfarclas 25 Year KWM Cask Strength 25th Anniversary
Just $285
The first of our 25th Anniversary whiskies is a stunner and we can’t keep it in stock! Soft sherry influences and silky smooth at 52%! More than half have already sold.
$285
Arran 1997 KWM Cask 1085 19Yr
The oldest Arran yet, to come to Canada!
Our 7th single cask bottling of Arran for KWM is the oldest yet at 19 years of age! Bottled at 51.4% from a Ex-Bourbon Hogshead. Yes we know it says Sherry on the label, but it is not… details! If this is anything like one of our 18 year olds from last winter, don’t expect them to last long, just 258 total bottles, and it is another stunning cask!
$145
Introducing anCnoc 24 Year
Only 30 bottles are initially coming to Alberta!
This new anCnoc is available in only vanishingly small quantities, at least initially. We managed to snag 18 of the paltry 30 bottles which have initially trickled into Alberta. Bottled at 46% and matured in Ex-Bourbon and Ex-Sherry. Some of the sherry casks may have been American oak, to complicate the picture only slightly.
anCnoc 24 Year – 46% – ExBourbon & Ex-Sherry – Andrew’s Tasting Note: “Nose: soft and decadent, white chocolate, dried dark fruits, candied nuts and marzipan; building sherry and spices, a touch of Christmas cake and sticky toffee pudding with treacle sauce; loads of citrus, melon and diced pineapple. Palate: big, sherried and spicy right from the word go; lots of layers; more creamy vanilla, pineapple cubes, crisp citrus and honey dew melon; the spices build throughout with some coffee notes and cocoa nibs; late leather and sweet tobacco. Finish: smooth, creamy and fruity with fading spices, leather and chocolate. Comment: the are very few distillery bottled whiskies at or around $200 anymore; this one doesn’t disappoint; if you are not acquainted with anCnoc, you should be, the 18 Year, 22 Year and 1975 are also all excellent!” – $210
Introducing BenRiach 1998 Cask 10300
A massive Port Finished BenRiach bottled for Western Canada!
A Tawny Port Finished 1998 BenRiach listed only in Alberta and BC. I’ve asked for more information, I have some questions about it. Most importantly, how does it taste? The colour is insanely dark. Cask No.10300, distilled 11/02/1998 and bottled in August of 2016 at 18 years. 54.2%, only 597 hand numbered bottles.
BenRiach 1998 Tawny Port Finish Cask 10300 – 54.2% – Andrew’s Tasting Note: “Nose: Eatmore and Snickers candy bars, grapey fruits, leather, prunes and building spices: white pepper, cayenne and fennel; earthy and musty, damp pipe tobacco and wet leaf litter. Palate: big, juicy and very spicy; the earthy-leathery wine tannins slap you across the face (albeit gently), loads of chocolate, more Eatmore and Snickers, big bold spices more hot white pepper, cayenne and cloves; prunes and other dark fruits with a touch of smoky bacon. Finish: big, long, spicy and rich; spices and leather cling to the palate while the chocolate and dark fruits slowly fade out. Comment: this is a bit of a beast, however an interesting one; big flavors, some good complexity and a long robust finish; a cigar malt.” –$240
Year End Inventory Clearance Sale
All In-Stock Whiskies Discounted 10-30%!
Sale Rules
All in Stock Bourbon at least 10% off!
All in Stock Canadian Whiskies at least 10% off!
All in Stock Single Malt Whiskies at least 10% off!
All other World Whisky Styles at least 10% off!
Save 15%
Save 20%
Save 25%
Save 30%
All 50ml Bottles of Scotch 15%
Thank You for Reading the Malt Messenger!
Contact & Disclaimers
If you have any whisky questions or comments concerning The Malt Messenger please contact me by e-mail, phone, or drop by the store.
All of the products mentioned in THE MALT MESSENGER can be purchased in store, over the phone or from our website at www.kensingtonwinemarket.com. All prices quoted in the Malt Messenger are subject to change and don’t include GST. In the case of discrepancies in pricing, the price in our in store point of sale will be taken as correct.
Thanks for reading the Malt Messenger.
Slainte!
Andrew Ferguson
Owner & Scotchguy
Kensington Wine Market
403-283-8000
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
2017 is the 175th Anniversary of Cadenhead’s – Scotland’s oldest independent bottler established 1842 by William Cadenhead.
To mark this great event we in London have decided to start the year with a raffle to raise fund’s for the Samaritans who offer vital support to people of all ages who feel under pressure with life in general. We all know things can and do happen that challenge us in various aspects of life, for some the events can lead to devastating consequences.
The idea for this event came about a few months ago after a young person stepped in-front of a train I was traveling on coming back to London.
A number of things happened after the tragedy, firstly some people who had little or no sympathy called the victim selfish and a coward! This shocked me deeply as they and indeed I had no knowledge of this person or what they went through. To offer an ill judged opinion was, I felt, disgusting and deeply wrong. Thankfully most felt concern for the family who must now cope with the consequences of the afternoons events
Talking to one mother who was having to deal with her children, she talked about her own younger sister who also decided to end her life.
As we chatted I recalled my own cousin who tried so many times to take his life, eventually doing so. We all felt confused and guilty because we kept thinking why did we not do more, what else could we or should we have done? The more I talked to others the more I discovered the terrible tole of so many young lives lost in much the same way, friends and family left confused or feeling a deep guilt because they felt they let the person down.
The pressure people feel can at times be overwhelming, especially if you are under economic pressure or struggling to cope with life in general, there is also the new problems around social media and the young. How many times have we seen the wholesale dismissal of young people in the media ignoring the fact that most young people today are far more advanced than in my youth or the youth of the reporters and political class who ignore their plight or dismiss concerns taking away hope they will be listened to!
Lets not forget the pressure young people face from education, endless exams and testing as well as the issue of debt if they want to go to university, or if they choose to look for work then its another issue with housing costs!
Of course the issues we all face, young or old, need to be addressed, anyone of us could find we are feeling desperate, lonely or finding it hard to cope. So many things can and will happen of course but we just don’t know if one of those events is enough for us to feel the need to end things.
So what can we do?
1. Ignore it or as some say forget it as it’s too difficult a subject to deal with! Or assume it will never happen to us or our loved ones.
2. Try in some small way to help give as many people as possible the road to the valuable support they might need via people like the Samaritans who never judge they just help.
Why are we doing this fundraiser?
Sometimes we can surrounded by friends and family but we might also feel isolated in some way, a kind of disconnect if you like. The fear that those we are closest to will feel hurt or be less than understanding. The voice of someone not connected to us can do far more to help us move forward with some hope.
Over 590 young people between 10 & 24 years old took their lives in the UK in 2014 alone, can we simply ignore this or should we do our small part to help the Samaritans? Without the work and support of the Samaritans the situation would be far worse.
The Draw
We have a series of bottles in the raffle ranging in prices from £50 to several £100’s, the prize is growing so much so we will be drawing a bottle and then the winner for that vintage. It will be done using prizes numbered from 1 to say 10, we wont know what prize is in each carton as these will be packed and numbered by customers not staff members weeks before the draw in mid March 2017.
Tickets will be available online from today until March 15th. The draw will take place on Tuesday 21st of March 2017 at around 5:45PM until the last prize is drawn we hope by 7:00PM. The winning order/raffle number’s will be drawn by an independent person/s. We will call or email the winners as soon as the draw is done.
Price for each ticket is £5.50 with all profits going to the Samaritans.
A huge thanks to all those who have supported us in setting this vent up.
• Cadenhead’s
• Springbank Distillery
• Gordon & Macphails
• Paul John
• And some pretty amazing customers who have also given some gems to the cause.
Stephen
The Samaritans is a registered charity. Registration Number 268293
The Milroys Insider.
Patricks Picks. Vol. 1
~Weekly insight into the best of the best~
STAGG JUNIOR RETURNS TO MILROYS.
Looking for a bottle of Stagg Junior? Can’t find it anywhere else? Not to worry, we have stock!
Order direct from our website or call the shop on 0207 734 2277.
Stagg Jr shares many characteristics with its older brother George T Stagg. It’s big, it’s bold and it’s high strength! The first batch has been aged for between 8 and 9 years with a perfect balance of sweet and spicy flavours. Bold, brave and burley. The younger brother of the Stagg senior, this bittersweet dram is something to be witnessed and drunk with caution at 66.05%, it’s a bourbon fans dream without breaking your wallet.
