Born in the USA

Isle of Skye continues to surge in popularity in the States. We decided to find out the ‘secret to success’ from Lynn Kohl at our US Importer, ImpEx:

“It’s the blend that thinks it’s a single malt”. With a greater percentage of single malt and the added ageing in bourbon barrels, both the seasoned “Maltheads” and perhaps more importantly, the new Scotch drinker, have become aware that this fine blend is not only an affordable everyday dram but also has a richness that far surpasses their old familiar choices. Having grown-up, (now also growing beyond beers), those consumers aged 20-30’s are moving on. They do not want their father’s drink. Isle of Skye is a unique Scotch Blend and they are now claiming ownership of that uniqueness.

The success of Ian Macleod’s Isle of Skye 8 Year Old has undoubtedly whetted the appetite of the U.S. market and consumers are demanding more expressions. We at ImpEx Beverages Inc. will be introducing the Isle of Skye 12 Year Old in the Fall of 2011. To assist in promoting the new Isle of Skye 12 Year Old, ImpEx is launching the “Pub It Up” campaign which highlights our new, younger fan’s love of sports, whisky and gathering places — their local pubs and sports bars.

Read all the Isle of Skye Blended Scotch Whisky NEWS at www.isleofskyewhisky.com/news/

The Claymore Times

~ All The News That’s Fit To Drink ~

Greetings Malt Lovers,

The room went deadly quiet when Michael Urquhart of Gordon & MacPhail brought out the 70 year old Glenlivet and gave everyone in the masters class a sample to try, you could have heard a pin drop. An unbelievable night at the Spirit of Toronto and one I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.

Here’s some of the whiskies you had a chance to sample from our table which are all available at the LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) but because of their rarity you may have to order from your local LCBO store.

And some photos from last week Spirit of Toronto that were taken on the night.

Coming soon a 15yo Mortlach, I’ll keep you posted.
                  
Regards,

Bill Somerville
Global Operations Director
Claymore Imports Inc.

www.ralfy.com has a new review called   … whisky review 201 – Glenfarclas 15yo

… hooray !

The Most Expensive ‘Whisky’ in The World

The whisky world does like producing premium products. We know all about that at TWE, with last year’s Trinitas release being a big event in our normally sleepy existence, but outside of the world of expensive liquids there is another side – premium packaging. My interest was piqued this week when an article about Isabella’s… (please click on the link below to read the remainder of the article)…

http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/2011/05/the-most-expensive-whisky-in-the-world/

This is a big weekend on Islay, and not only because it’s the first weekend of the Islay Festival of Malt & Music. Bruichladdich is celebrating the 10th anniversary of its 2001 revival this weekend, and we’ll look back at the last 10 years with managing director Mark Reynier and the Bard of Bruichladdich, singer-songwriter Robin Laing. Midleton Distillery cooper Ger Buckley tells us about the centuries-old art of making barrels by hand, and shows us in the debut of WhiskyCast HD, a new series of video podcasts. We’ll also hear from the Spirit Journal’s F. Paul Pacult and Euan Shand of Duncan Taylor.

Visit WhiskyCast at www.whiskycast.com

MCLEANSCOTLAND have had the busiest month yet for whisky tours of Scotland! Late April (27th to be exact) until the end of May saw many tour groups arrive into Scotland;

A group from Vancouver, Canada for a tour including Glasgow, Inveraray, Islay, Oban, Inverness, Speyside and Glasgow with many distilleries included!

From Russia a wee distillery tour mixed into a general sightseeing tour.

We had the Dutch Whisky Society with us in Speyside and many other locations, a full tour programme seeing many, many distilleries.

From USA a wee tour to Oban, Perthshire, Glasgow seeing 8 distilleries including Glengoyne where they chose a cask.

Another from Holland, Glasgow, Islay, Oban, Craigellachie, Perth with a large number of distilleries visited.

A large group from Sweden touring Speyside, many distilleries and whisky dinners on this one!

A great group from the Faroe Isles, touring Speyside, Aberdeenshire, Inverness shire and whisky dinners, distilleries and visits.

A wee group from London taking in Speyside, Perthshire and Edinburgh.

All these tours were driver guided or coach, driver and guide. “It’s been a very busy month and we love it!” said Paul McLean, Senior Partner. Some of the tours were very personalised with Paul driving some himself.

“We have more tours booked throughout the year, including a group from Pernod Ricard Sweden, a Diageo tour programme from South Africa, more Dutch and Swedes, plus Norwegians”.  It is a busy time for whisky tourism.

With all the tours packing in, MCLEANSCOTLAND have no time to take a break themselves, nor have they time to be a part in whisky festivals, apart from the Chester (England) gestival in October, where they will take a stand!  With so many whisky trade contacts, the company are working well to bring as many people as possible to enjoy the delights of Scotland, it’s whisky, it’s people and all the country has to offer.

Not only that, they have also made time to plan a tour to Ireland, visiting distilleries there. In fact in 2012, whisky live will return to Dublin, and a 5 day tour is planned around the event, taking in some grand Irish distilleries, whisky tastings and sightseeing.

All of these tours arranged, planned, designed, booked and implemented by MCLEANSCOTLAND, in addition to the many general sightseeing tours the company arrange year round, May indeed was a busy month!

Past guests have said of MCLEANSCOTLAND

You are the best whisky tour operator in Scotland …  Thanks for a fantastic tour, it was simply wonderful, your coordination really helped…

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for being a reliable, generous and most thoughtful guide. Your business will flourish if the service we enjoyed is your norm. We had a great time … Hello Paul, Now we are back home in Norway after a safe return. Thanks to you for a very successful excursion on Friday. I have got very positive feed-back from the group. …  Paul’s whisky tour was outstanding. He took time to show us some of the country we would otherwise never have seen. I was fortunate to find a rare malt I had been looking for without success. I would not hesitate to recommend this trip to anyone  …   Dutch Whisky Society (DWS);   I would like to thank you again – also on behalf of the rest of the group – for our last week”s tour of Scotland. We had a really great time there!! Thanks to your (and of course Liz’ ) effort and preparations, and of course above all thanks to  Also we would like to thank you very much for the offer to send our excess bottles by mail to us! We are very happy we could buy now all we wanted and cannot get over here. “Aye, we do have this service available to all; bottles that cannot be taken home with your luggage, we can arrange shipping.” Paul

MCLEANSCOTLAND is owned and run by Liz Gillespie and Paul McLean out of Perth, Scotland.

www.mcleanscotland.com       info@mcleanscotland.com

Society Cask Ends Sale: Enjoy BIG Savings

We’ve put together three parcels made entirely from the last few bottles from some outstanding and never-to-be-repeated casks.

Although the identity of the 70cl bottles in our parcels are a mystery, our Society Cask Ends Sale has become legendary amongst members.  The sale not only offers wonderful savings, it opens-the-eyes to some sensational single casks you may have never tried before.  We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised

Cask Ends Parcel A: Ex-sherry casks
£95.oo inc free p&p 

Cask Ends Parcel B: Ex-bourbon casks
£95.00 inc. free p&p

Cask Ends Parcel C: Ex-sherry & bourbon casks
£95.00 inc. free p&p

Additional Bottle Offer: Buy 2.78 for only £49.00 instead of £69.10 when you buy ANY Cask Ends Parcel

2.78 Kissed up by sweet promises
Speyside Spey
The nose had some seconds of spikiness, with pine resin and potato schnapps, but quickly settled to delicate aromatics of plum blossom, cherry wood shavings, lilac and candied angelica; then lovely sweet promises kissed up – vanilla, honeycomb, Ferrero Rocher

Society Tastings & Events

A Crash Course in single malts – The Vaults, Tue 24 May
Dunfermline Preview Tasting – Garvock House Hotel
Guildford Preview Tasting – Manor House Hotel, Thu 26 May
York Preview Tasting – Bedern Hall, Fri 27 May
Liverpool Preview Tasting – Malmaison, Fri 27 May
Cardiff Preview Tasting – Novotel, Fri 27 May
Champions League Final – Queen Street, Fri 27 May
New Outturn Open Tasting – London, Sat 4 June
New Outturn Tasting – The Vaults, Sun 5 June
‘Classic’ Malt Tasting – Queen Street, Sat 11 June

Society Whisky Tastings

Whatever and wherever our tasting or event, the main focus is to give members an informal, enjoyable and relaxed night out..with a taste of the single cask good stuff!

Events range from step by step instruction in how to get the most from tasting single cask, single malt whisky to more adventurous couplings of whisky with food.

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 http://www.smws.co.uk/memberships for your chance to join and to take advantage of their great offers. 

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

We’re very proud to announce that The Whisky Exchange at Vinopolis has been invited by Ardbeg to become an official Ardbeg Embassy – a privilege only a handful of specialist retailers around the globe have been offered. As an Ardbeg Embassy, we will always have a healthy range of bottles from the distillery open to sample in store. We will also be given a glorious 4.5 litre bottle of the new Ardbeg Alligator for its Committee Exclusive launch on the 1st June, which we’re under strict instructions to drink and share with other Ardbeg Committee members only. How about that!
 
ARDBEG EMBASSY LAUNCH,
with Michael Heads
Tuesday 31st May, 7:00pm

In celebration of this very exciting collaboration with one of our favourite Islay distilleries, we’re hosting an Ardbeg tasting evening on Tuesday 31st May, presented by Distillery Manager Michael Heads. This will also serve as a sneak preview of the Alligator, which will be sampled on the evening, just before its Committee Exclusive launch the following day. The exact line-up will remain a closely guarded secret, but suffice to say that Mickey will be bringing down a few treats from the distillery’s warehouse for us to try. We also heard a whisper that the delectable Ardbeg Land Girls may be accompanying him, so we’ve invested in a set of super-strength shackles for Toby, just in case.

For those of you unfamiliar with the distillery, Ardbeg is renowned for its heavily peated, intensely smoky style of malt whisky, very much typical of the Island – Islay – from which it comes. If you are a fan of Laphroaig or Lagavulin, this will most likely be up your street. If you’ve never tried a peated style of whisky before, it may well be worth trying a dram of Laphroaig at a reputable hostelry before you consider attending this tasting.

As demand for this tasting is likely to be astronomical, we will be offering places at the event in a slightly different fashion to the usual first-come, first-served manner. To make things as fair as possible to anyone who may be indisposed, stuck at work or otherwise unable to call us in the usual manner, we will be drawing names from a hat and offering the selected names a chance to buy 1 or 2 tickets. If you would like to come along to this spectacular night, please either send an email with your name and preferred contact number to vinopolis@thewhiskyexchange.com, or alternatively give us a call during our opening hours on +44 (0)207 403 8688. The deadline for doing this is 3:00pm, Monday 23rd May. We will run the draw on that evening, and notify the randomly selected lucky people the following day (Tuesday 24th May) by phone. You will then have 24hrs to purchase your ticket(s), priced at £30 each; otherwise we will pass the offer on to the next person in the list.

We hope that you understand our rationale behind offering places in this manner. We’d also like to point out that this is not how we intend to proceed with all tastings, it’s just that Ardbeg has something of a cult following and there’s likely to be a minor stampede for places! Also, it’s worth mentioning that while none of the TWE Team here at Vinopolis would claim to possess unwavering moral fortitude, we won’t be accepting bribes for places from anyone (you know who you are!).
  
Sláinte,

The Team

Frequently Asked Questions

Hi,

What is the legal definition of Scotch whisky? Which spelling is correct, whisky or whiskey? What are the total stocks of Scotch whisky? How should I store my whisky? Can whisky be enjoyed as part of a gluten-free diet?

These are questions I am asked on a daily basis and today I would like to point…(please click on the link below to read the rest of the article)

http://blog.grantswhisky.com/2011/05/frequently-asked-questions/

Kind regards,
Ludo

www.ralfy.com has a second part to the mile-stone WhiskyReview 200. …whisky review 200 (2/2) – The Anniversary Glenfarclas Malt Review… concluding the examination of this excellent Malt.