NEWSFLASH!!

Dear Society Members,

Firstly, thank you for your patience with my replies since the latest Society Bottling was released. As imagined, my inbox has been a very busy place since the bottling was announced and although I’ve been working through the orders as quickly as I can, there are a handful of members who are still waiting for a reply. I can confirm that if you have emailed to order a bottle of the new Society Longrow 13yo up until this date then you have definitely got a bottle reserved so I will contact you for payment as soon as I can.

On top of the Society orders, I’ve also been getting everything finalised for the Malts Festival (I promise I will be sending new details on Friday – thank you again for your patience) and organising a Wedding Fayre! As many of you may already know, part of my job is also to administrate and organise the events for Explore Campbeltown and the next event is the Wedding Fayre which is taking place this Sunday (26th April). We have over 30 businesses exhibiting on the day with stalls, demonstrations and a catwalk all happening so it’s been a bit manic recently to say the least!! I love my job as there is never a dull or uneventful day in the office but at times like this, it can be pretty hectic!

UK Single Cask Bottling – AVAILABLE NOW!!

I know a lot of you have been very excited about the release of the new UK exclusive Single Cask bottling. I can confirm this has now been bottled and is available for purchase in our Campbeltown shop from this afternoon and other UK retail outlets (including our Edinburgh and London Cadenhead shops) from Friday 24th April.

This new bottling is a Springbank 12 year old Port Wood and a nice wee fact is that it was distilled in 2003 which was the 175th anniversary of Springbank Distillery. It has been bottled at a cask strength of 58.3% and is extremely limited with only 696 bottles available. The price for this bottling is £60.00 and unfortunately no Society discount will be available as it is just so limited.

If you would like to order a bottle from the Campbeltown Cadenhead shop then can I ask you to please get in touch with the shop directly as I will not be taking orders for this – simply because I will not be able to keep track of how many bottles they have available. Each shop will only have a very small allocation and I imagine they will sell very quickly. You can contact our shop by calling +44 (0) 1586 55 1710 (option 1).

The tasting notes for this bottling are:

Nose: Mineral – granite, oily, bees wax and salty. Hints of almonds and banana skins then port – winey notes come through.

Palate: Cloved oranges, orange bitters, roasted coffee beans. Malty with hints of oak.

Finish: Dark chocolate and orange then becoming fairly dry towards the end.

**With water the port influence is more prominent.

I’m still waiting on the product shot for this whisky but I will put it onto the Springbank Distillers Facebook page as soon as I get it (hopefully tomorrow).

Spirit of Freedom ’45 Plus’ Auction

Springbank Distillers Ltd have just released our latest Spirit Of Freedom Blend, ’45 Plus’, a follow up to November’s ‘The 45’. The new bottling contains more than 45 different whiskies from across Scotland and has been bottled at 52%vol. This bottle will retail at £27.50 per bottle and Society members will receive their discount on this meaning it will cost members £24.75.

The tasting notes for this bottling are:

Nose: Malty, creamy, vanilla and buttery with hints of marzipan. Then dried apricots and muesli.

Palate: Dried fruits, dates and lime cordial. Heather and parma-violets.

Finish: Subtle hints of peat smoke come through towards the end, finishing with a long malty, honey sweetness.

We are currently auctioning off a limited edition pair of Spirit of Freedom ‘45 Plus’ bottles – one of which has been signed by the former First Minister, Alex Salmond alongside Argyll & Bute SNP candidate Brendan O‘Hara and the other by Springbank & Glengyle Distillery Manager, Gavin McLachlan. Funds raised by the auction will be donated to the Kintyre Kidney Dialysis Campaign. This campaign has recently started in Kintyre to persuade NHS Highland to provide much needed dialysis facilities within Campbeltown Hospital. This will save many locals the tiring and traumatic 3.5 hour trip to the Vale of Leven Hospital in Alexandria three times per week for life saving dialysis.

The auction began on Friday 17th April 2015 and ends at 4pm BST on Friday 24th April 2015 with the current highest bid sitting at £150.00. To bid, send your offer, along with your name, address and contact telephone number to: auction@springbankwhisky.com. An update is made every day on the Springbank Distillers Facebook page and the winner will be notified shortly after 4pm on Friday. Happy Bidding!!

Sláinte,

Mairi

Mairi Paterson

For the Springbank Society

To join the Springbank Society please contact them at

society@springbankwhisky.com

NEW ARRIVALS

Canada – Whisky

• Alberta Dark Batch Rye Whiskey 750ml ($27.99)

BACK IN STOCK

United States – Bourbon and Rye

• Noah’s Mill Bourbon 750ml – 12 available ($54.99)

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

It’s been just over a month since we reopened the Milroy’s doors following the change of ownership and our extensive refurbishment. Now we finally have the time we thought we’d give you all an update on how we are doing and let you know about the changes and exciting new products we have in store.

What’s New In Store

Bars – two of them actually – for those of you who haven’t managed to pop in yet we now have a stunning coppertop whisky bar on the ground floor, allowing you to sip a dram (35ml measures – 25ml just isn’t enough!) whilst perusing the shelves and then receiving 10% off the bottle you’ve just enjoyed.

The second bar is located in the basement, previously this was our tasting room. We’ve now added a concrete bar and opened up what we like to call the Barrel Room, a small 10 seater vault, previously our whisky cellar. Downstairs is a little different, the focus here is cocktails expertly made by Natalino and Simo, open from 6pm Tuesday-Thursday and 5pm Friday & Saturday, or you could of course stick to whisky (or even try our own beer!).

Web Store

As you will know we haven’t yet got a working web store up and running, much to the frustration of both ourselves and of course you our customers. For those of you out there who are in I.T. and I’m sure there are a few, you’ll know designing a top quality (working!) web store isn’t something done overnight, and as we are now a totally new company keeping the old web store wasn’t an option. The good news though is we aren’t far off – we hope to have a transactional web store up and running by mid-May.

The second piece of good news is you can still buy online, kind of, in the interim we will make sure we update you on new stock as and when it arrives, so simply email back to the newsletter or give us a call and we can send out the stock to you. If there is anything you are looking for just let us know and we’ll be happy to help.

New Stock: Samaroli

A name synonymous with quality whisky, established almost 50 years ago Samaroli is amongst the most famous independent bottlers in the world of whisky.  Some of the older Samaroli bottles now command a high price, and having tried the 2014 releases we can honestly say nothing has changed in terms of quality. Silvano Samaroli at the time of starting his bottling company in 1968 was the first to do so outside of the UK.

Samaroli’s ethos remains the same as ever, bottling whiskies when they feel the time is right, and the flavour represents what they feel a whisky should be. Everything is done in small batches and their total yearly output is a mere 14,000 bottles worldwide, as such we only have a very small number of each.

Jura 1997, 17 Year Old, 43%

This tasty 17 year old Jura is big on the coastal flavour profile. Seaweed resting in a quiet harbour, petunias and lashings of sea salt make for an amazing dram! £91.75

Ferry To Islay, 55.1%

A blended malt of Bunnahabhain, Caol Ila and Laphroaig. This is typical Islay oozing in peat with a surprising minty subtlety. £179.95

This week Joe Ellis reviews Lagavulin 12 Year Old 2013 Special Release.

https://youtu.be/PNogRGKVIpY

http://Twitter.com/whiskytube

https://www.facebook.com/whiskytube

Welcome to the new Abbey Whisky website! 

Starting out in 2008 as a small online whisky retailer, Abbey has evolved over the years to become a leading supplier within the whisky sector thanks in part to our growing range of exclusive malts. We’re constantly looking at ways to improve the service we offer our customers and although our old website served us and (we hope) our customers well, we’re excited to introduce to you our brand-new, dynamic website which we hope will make the customer experience even better!

Latest Whisky Arrivals

Not only have we been working hard on the new website but we’ve also been busily stocking our shelves with some fantastic new whiskies to adorn the shiny new pages!! Here’s a small selection of the latest arrivals with more beauties to follow over the coming days and weeks…

www.ralfy.com turns to the green-side with Whisky Review 352 – Springbank 12yo Green Single Malt & carrots

Whisky Ramblings Via Video #108

Mark Dermul, Belgian Whiskyblogger, tries an Island whisky at cask strength. Arran is a rather young distillery, founded only in 1995. It can be found on the isle of the same name, between Glasgow on the mainland and Campbeltown. One of their regular offerings is the Arran 12 Year Old Cask Strength, which was first released in 2012. Now, in 2015, the 4th batch is available. It proves to be quite a fruity and marvellous whisky indeed.

http://youtu.be/dQppzvGGz1Q

The Spring Season is finally here, before soon it will be summer, Hurray!

As the weather becomes crisper it’s the time of year for those refreshing malts, leaving the sherry influenced drams until later on in the year.

This 12 year old Independent bottling of Strathmill from the discontinued Flora and Fauna range fits the bill just right, offering stunning crisp floral aromas, with tasty citrus fruits on the palate.

£41.95 BUY NOW

We the Merchants of Single Malts & Blended Whiskies will release to you the people some amazing products in all ages colours flavours and styles.

This is the lead up to the mad season when the political class will promise to do this cut that build this demolish that! So we think you the people will need a bit of good old fashioned quality to get through the endless drivel.

April 2015 sees a number of new products as I have told you about before plus a few others, mind you we do have one topical release due next week that some in Scotland will have seen on the media so I had to grab a few cases naturally.

Before we head into the new releases I can now give a lot more detail on the London special edition Caol Ila.

We have been looking into the future quite a lot in these newsletters however this one is keeping very quiet on the future products so as not to give any spoilers for the 100’s of subscribers who will be heading to Campbeltown for the Springbank open day May 21 and the Campbeltown Malts festival running from May 20th to May 22nd

If you are heading to Campbeltown I hope you enjoy the event you lucky people. – Stephen at Cadenhead’s

Caol Ila 31 year old 54.3%

The London special edition of Caol Ila will be heading into the bottling hall on May 5th 2015 Distilled in 1984 and matured in a fresh fill bourbon cask we expect the final outturn to be 168 bottles in the world Below is the London Tasting Panels notes.

Nose: Salted Caramel, Honey with sweet smoke, fruity with some coastal notes trying to break through, summer at the seaside. Palate: First sip gives you a superb richness of caramel & salted popcorn, the next wave of taste delivers a superb sweet smoke that grows in perfect balance with the salted caramel found on the nose. As this dram opens the flavours flow across the palate with some rich fruity notes that interweave around the peaty richness of this vintage cask. Finish: Long rich smoke and peat with even more of the middle palate, shortbread and toffee apple, more of that sweet smoke that makes this a really rich complex vintage Islay.

Whisky Festival 2015

May 20th – May 22nd Springbank open day 21st May.

Scotland’s Oldest Independent distillery. family owned and run. Established 1828

AVAILABLE NEXT WEEK

SPRINGBANK 12 Y/O Port Cask Well I can now give you the estimated release date of Thursday 23rd of April 12:30PM

During several days of pre release tasting in London the feedback was amazing with 100% of those who tried wanting to buy it! They loved the rich red fruits that came from the first sip, a rich complexity throughout with layer up on layer of flavour. This is a very limited edition single cask offering from Springbank.

Also available from next week: Spirit of Freedom 45% makes a return with 18 bottles of the original blend that will sit along side a NEW Sprit Of Freedom 45+ If you live in Scotland I think you might have seen something about this on the news this week!

Stephen

Cadenhead’s Whisky Shop & Tasting Room

26 Chiltern Street London

W1U 7QF

Tel: 020 7935 6999

United States – Single Malt Scotch

• Seven Stills Fluxuate Whiskey 375ml ($35.99)

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