EPISODE 267

Dave Pickerell has been keeping a low profile since leaving Maker’s Mark in April of 2008. Turns out he was doing research into rye and microdistilling, and discovered a 10-year-old rye that just begged to be bottled. Dave and his partners are now selling WhistlePig Rye Whiskey, with plans to build a distillery on a farm in Vermont’s Green Mountains. Dave explains his new whiskey and his research in this week’s episode. In the news, George Washington’s Rye goes on sale this week, results from the Bonhams auction in New York, and more new whiskies.

Visit WhiskyCast at www.whiskycast.com

Part Interview/chat with Mark Gillespie from whiskycast.com covering a few whisky-related topics.

Easily found at www.ralfy.com  ‘whisky reviews’ 140a + 140b. ….. hope you enjoy this humorous Vlog

Summer Arrives and Some Special Birthdays.

June  2010

Great weather this afternoon after a cloudy start with the temperature still at 22 degrees Celsius when I left around 6pm. Forecast is for a few more days like this and we are hoping that it will extend into the weekend as it is the Scottish Traditional Boat Festival, an annual event held in Portsoy.

Last year at this event we launched “The Spirit Drink that blushes to speak its name” and this year we will be selling pre-launch 200ml bottles of the extended Spirit Drink range including “Peated” and Fledgling XB” as well as “Clearac” and “Blushes” We will also be taking orders for the new book which will be here week commencing the 5th July (after a couple of delays) and which can be ordered through the website.

Unfortunately we also had a production problem this week with our condenser supply water pipe bursting underneath the still-house floor. This will result in a new supply line being installed across the still-house tomorrow and as we have two washbacks fermenting then we need this urgently.

Today is also the first birthday of the first 17 octaves which we sold. These casks were sampled today  and the samples will be sent to the cask owners. As the owner of cask number 1 I can tell you that 12 months maturation has resulted in a very fine drink, light straw in colour; nose of grass, pears and some grapes;  very sweet taste with buttery notes and spices in the after taste. It is good now and will, I am sure, improve even more.

If you have any questions or comments on any of the above or anything else then please let me know.

Slange

Stuart

Visit Glenglassaugh Distillery at www.glenglassaugh.com

We are proud to announce that the first episode in our series of videos about our new Master Distiller, Alan Winchester is is now online.   
      
The first episode features an interview with Alan Winchester, showing you our newly expanded distillery and talking through the distillation process, from malting to maturation. Covered in the interview, he answers some of the technical questions that The Guardians of the Glenlivet recently asked him on his web page.

Click here to view the video http://www.theglenlivet.com/
      
Once the series of films is complete, we will have answered all your questions, from the technical ones about the complex process of making The Glenlivet, to those about his life, his career and his views on our award-winning single malts.    
      
Thanks to everyone who sent a question and remember to come back to the site to be sure to catch the whole series.    
      
Kindest Regards,   
The Glenlivet

From John Campbell at Laphroaig;

I am aware I have not written to you for a while (I have been very busy, but I know that’s a poor excuse. However it is true!)

We have just completed our biggest and best Feis Ile. This is the week long festival of “Malt and Music” that our island of Islay puts on every year. During the festivities we held two big events.

The first was our first ever Friends of Laphroaig “Gathering”. Hundreds of “Friends” from all over the World donned their special Wellington Boots and joined us on their plots for a toast to “The Friends”. Later that evening we held a “Ceildh” (Party) in our barrel filling store. We shot a small film of it if you would like to get a flavour of the event: http://www.laphroaig.com/tv/channel2_prog8.asp.

A parallel “Gathering” was also held in Korea! Indeed so popular was it that I have had many requests for regional “Gatherings” to be organised. We will now be holding one in New York later in the year – more to come soon!

Two days later was our “Open Day” which was our biggest and best yet, with special tastings, games, cooking with Laphroaig demonstrations, boat trips and much more. We were also privileged to have two musical friends play in our courtyard Bridgid and Butch from America who entertained us with some beautiful “Blue Grass” music. Again we filmed all the activities, so if you would like to see what went on and hear the music you can watch it on Laphroaig TV.

I blogged live during the event with some fun competitions on our new Facebook site www.facebook.com/laphroaig. We now have over 24,000 members on our page making it very active, so if you have a Facebook account and have not joined our Laphroaig page yet I would love to meet you there. It does allow you to keep up with everything that’s going on.

As you may know we do film local islanders who have a special connection with Laphroaig and we have two new ones to show you. The RNLI is the UK’s Lifeboat rescue operation which of course is so important to us as islanders, and a strong fishing community. The RNLI is extraordinary as it is entirely run via charitable donations from the public. Indeed it is our permanent Friends of Laphroaig charity. As such I thought you would like to meet the skipper and his boat. Simon Brooking (our US Ambassador) took time off from his open day duties to meet him and his beautiful boat. Again, you can view it on Laphroaig TV.

And keeping with our nautical theme we also interviewed our local Lobster fisherman Kevin Campbell – notice his surname – yes it’s my younger brother! Of course there are some fantastic sauces that go with our local dishes of Scallops, crabs and Lobster so as you can guess Kevin and I have has some wonderful meals in the past. If you would like to meet Kevin and watch as I going lobster fishing on film then you can see us on Laphroaig TV.

I will write to you in a month or so to tell you about this year’s Laphroaig Live event. But for now I am going to keep it a secret!

Sláinte,

John Campbell

Visit Laphroaig Distillery at www.laphroaig.com

From Tim Forbes at the Whisky Exchange Blog;

I’ve been lucky enough to be present at five really excellent whisky tastings during the last four weeks.  I’ve ticked off quite a few drams I hadn’t previously tried and a couple of forthcoming treats as well.  So, to catch up, I’m going to do a whisky blog post every (working) day until next Wednesday – one for each of the five great tastings I went to in the last month.

See for yourself at http://blog.thewhiskyexchange.com/

From Glen Powell at Le Gourmet TV;

We just filmed a series of videos with Ian Millar from Glenfiddich, and one in particular might be of interest:

It’s for the Canadian Glenfiddich ‘North of 50 Contest’, where a group of lucky winners will travel to Banff to taste the full lineup of Glenfiddich including a bottle of the 50yo.

Here is the link to the video on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mC0B8XtNnI

From Sam Filmus at ImpEx Beverages;

“We are proud to announce that ImpEx Beverages, Inc. has been appointed by Ian MacLeod Distillers as the sole importer of Chieftain’s Range Single Malt Scotch Whisky.

All the expressions come in single casks (11 expressions are currently in stock), unchillfiltered and uncolored.” 

Visit ImpEx Beverages at http://www.impexbev.com/ and Ian MacLeod Distillers at http://www.ianmacleod.com/

From Johannes at malt Maniacs World Head Quarters;

“I’m very happy to announce the expansion of our team with two brand new
Maniacs – Chris Bunting from http://nonjatta.blogspot.com and Tim Puett from http://www.ardbegproject.com.”

Welcome to the team!

hello everyone,  ralfy-announcement here !

whisky review 138 – Jura 18yo   given a splash-in-glass at  www.ralfy.com ‘whisky reviews’