We have a very special Scotch Tasting this month including Convalmore 30 yr and Pittyvaich 26 years. The Convalmore distillery is closed so this scotch is very rare at 30 yrs. This tasting is focused on the scotch from the Dufftown area and will include Glendullan, Mortlach, Glenfiddich, Balvenie, and a 28yr Dufftown Chairman.  This tasting is an amazing value for $50 so bring a friend to share this special occasion with.

Dundee Dell, 5007 Underwood Ave, Omaha, NE 68132

J. & G. Grant are delighted to have won numerous awards for their whisky over the duration of 2015. Glenfarclas started off the year with a Highly Commended Nomination as an Icon of Whisky in the hugely popular Whisky Magazine. The Glenfarclas range as a whole has shown considerable success across several of its core range products in both spirits competitions and whisky fairs abroad. Most notably the Glenfarclas 30 Years Old achieved a Double Gold Award at Stockholm Beer & Whisky Fair, followed by the 21 Years Old being voted Best Whisky at Oslo Whisky Fair in October. Younger Glenfarclas products have also shared the spotlight with both Glenfarclas 10 Years Old & 12 Years Old winning Silver in the 2015 International Wine & Spirit Competition.

This year, reviews in Jim Murray’s recently released 2016 Whisky Bible include awards for the unique collection of Family Casks. The Family Casks 1957 (cask no. 2110, Release SP15) was nominated Single Cask Whisky of the Year scoring 96.5/100 in which Jim Murray comments “I struck lucky with this, as it ticks every single box that a great malt might, and there is not a single cross to be found.” The Family Casks 1985 (cask no. 2593, Release SP15) also won Best Single Cask Whisky aged between 28-34 Years (again scoring 96.5/100) and was described as “one of the most supremely balanced Glenfarclases of all time”. Similar results were awarded to core range products such as the 12 Years Old & 40 Years Old which both scored 94/100, in addition to the iconic 105 Cask Strength winning 95.5/100 respectively.

Slàinte to a successful year!

Glenfarclas
Email: info@glenfarclas.co.uk
Website: www.glenfarclas.co.uk
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/glenfarclas/
Tel: +44 (0) 1807 500257
Fax: +44 (0) 1807 500234
Address: Glenfarclas Distillery, Ballindalloch, Banffshire AB37 9BD, UK

Mark Reynier of Waterford Distillery Interviewed at Malt

Mark Reynier, former CEO of Bruichladdich and now the man in charge of Waterford Distillery, is now interviewed at whisky website Malt. In this in-depth interview he talks about his new venture into Irish whiskey at Waterford, why he’s so focussed on barley, and how he felt when Bruichladdich was sold to Rémy Cointreau.

To read the interview visit malt-review.com.

For more information email maltreview@gmail.com

(Link to interview: http://malt-review.com/2016/01/25/interview-with-mark-reynier )

We still have stock of the highly sought-after collectibles from Diageo’s Special Release 2015. These whiskies are highly desirable so it is recommended to buy quickly to avoid disappointment.To view the full range of our collectables follow this link:  Collectors Corner

Single Malts Direct 36 Gordon Street | Huntly | Aberdeenshire | AB54 8EQ | Scotland UK

+44 (0) 845 606 6145 | info@singlemaltsdirect.com

‘THE ONE’ TAKES CENTRE STAGE AS THE OFFICIAL WHISKY TO THE BEST OF BRITISH AT THE NATIONAL TELEVISION AWARDS 

The award-winning British Isles blended whisky, The ONE produced by The Lakes Distillery blended with the who’s who of British talent as the official Whisky of the 21^st National Television Awards’ VIP After Show Party.

Award winners including Ant & Dec, Billy Connolly, Suranne Jones and Danny Dyer along with the cast of shows including Doctor Foster, This Morning and Strictly Come Dancing celebrated their wins with a dram of The ONE.

“As an award winning newcomer in the artisan craft business The ONE is the perfect pairing as the official Whisky to the worthy winners of the National Television Awards”, said Paul Currie, founder and managing director of The Lakes Distillery.

The Lakes Distillery’s artisan spirits are produced on-site at the distillery in The Lake District National Park using water collected just 150m from the site, water which has travelled from sprinkling tarn near England’s highest peak to the Derwent River flowing next to the site. The ONE has won a string of awards in the world’s most authoritative, respected and influential spirits competitions.

The ONE, in tandem with Liquor to Lips, the UK’s leading drinks events, entertainment and marketing consultancy, ensured Award winners will be in esteemed company with Blackdown Artisan Spirits, Peter Spanton Drinks, Neat Tasting Glasses and the Whisky Key providing a bespoke offering to our nations most celebrated Television personalities.

The Lakes Distillery opened its doors to the public in December 2014, shortly after it started production of The Lakes Single Malt, The Lakes Gin and The Lakes Vodka. Visitors to the £7m distillery in Cumbria can follow a world class tour of the production facility, taste the spirits created on site in the award winning artisan bar and Bistro at the Distillery, and go away with a souvenir from the shop selling distillery products and locally produced fare.

More information about the Lakes Distillery is available at http://www.lakesdistillery.com/e-brochure/

More information abbot The Bistro at The Lakes is available at: www.lakesdistillery.com/en/bistro-and-bar

Picture caption: The Lakes Distillery’s award- The ONE at the O2 arena for the 21^st National Television Awards

Notes to Editors:

The ONE, The Lakes Gin, The Lakes Vodka and both the Connoisseurs’ Club and Founders’ Club are available to buy online at http://www.lakesdistillery.com/shop/

The Lakes Distillery

• The Lakes Distillery, England’s newest craft distillery, opened to the public in December 2014. The Lakes Single Malt began production on 16th December 2014 and will be available in 2017. Its blended whisky from the British Isles, called The ONE, the Lakes Gin and the Lakes Vodka are available to buy now.
• Six miles from Keswick along the A66 or a similar distance from Cockermouth The Lakes Distillery is next to Bassenthwaite Lake, in an area of unimaginable beauty encircled by Cumbrian fells
• The experienced team behind the Lakes Distillery includes managing director Paul Currie who co-founded the Arran Distillery, Master Distiller Chris Anderson with over 30 years’ experience and Alan Rutherford a former Production Director of Diageo who renovated the historic buildings of an old Victorian Model Farm next to the famous river Derwent and are producing a new world-class blended whisky, single malt, gin and vodka
• The water from the famous River Derwent, with its source high up in the fells, a team steeped in experience of producing spirits, and perfect conditions for distilling create a very special range of spirits
• The Bistro at The Distillery is overseen by Michelin star chef Terry Laybourne and won OpenTable Diner’s Choice Award for four months running in Cumbria and Keswick. The Bistro at the distillery employs local staff and offers indoor and outdoor dining options.

Starward – a New World Whisky

Australian whisky is on the up. This is far from a new thing, with Sullivans Cove French Oak picking up the World’s Best Whisky award at the World Whiskies Awards in 2014 and more distilleries springing up all the time. Despite the success, it’s still difficult to find Australian drams on the shelves on the UK. However, we have had a new one arrive recently – Starward from the New World Whisky Distillery.

I first heard about the whisky a couple of years ago, and more than anything, the bottle design grabbed me. I’m a sucker for beautiful labels and Starward ticks all the boxes – star maps, a pretty font and a name that’s a single letter away from being Star Wars. Unfortunately, it wasn’t available in the UK so I just lusted after a bottle from afar, keeping an eye on their website for news, and hoping that it also tasted good…

My wait, and yours, is now over, as Starward has made its way to the UK.

Unlike most Australian distillers, New World Whisky is based on the mainland, in Melbourne. It’s about as close to Tasmania – Australia’s distilling heartland – as you can get without falling into the sea, but has a different climate, thanks to being sandwiched between the cool sea and the country’s hot interior.

It’s a very Australian whisky, made with local barley and matured in apera casks. Apera’s a term that most people haven’t heard before – it’s the new name for Australian sherry. There are strict rules in Europe about where sherry can be made (which you can learn more about in my posts on sherry casks) so to be a good global citizen, and to open the door for exporting it to Europe, the Australian lawmakers have decreed that locally produced fortified wine can no longer be called ‘sherry’ and will henceforth be called ‘apera’. Be warned: if you ask for apera in Australia you will almost certainly get a blank look – other than on the labels, the name change doesn’t seem to have got all that far…

Starward’s whisky is exclusively matured in old apera casks – the average age is more than 20 years old – and the casks are recoopered, resized and retoasted before being filled. They also use a variety of different sizes of cask which, along with Melbourne’s changeable climate, gives New World a good range of styles of spirit to play with when creating their whiskies. Outside of the current release of Starward, they’re still experimenting, with other types of cask quietly maturing, including some Australian Shiraz wine casks – the first release has already appeared, and it’s gone down very well. There’s definitely more to come.

STARWARD MALT WHISKY

Nose: Sweet shop notes leap out of the glass – tins of travel sweets and candy necklaces – accompanied by candied flowers, spiced sponge cake with butter icing and jam filling, sugar-dusted puff pastry, sultanas and a touch of gooey caramel.

Palate: Thick and sweet, with golden-syrup sandwiches (on brown bread), malt loaf, ginger cake, speculaas and lebkuchen biscuits, and a background hint of black liquorice. As that calms down, the liquorice slowly becomes more minty and menthol, with a touch of milk chocolate and cherry jam sneaking in around the sides.

Finish: Fresh and leafy to start, with mint slowly fading to a sweet and chocolatey end.

Comment: While the spiciness on the palate suggests that this whisky is youthful, it has definitely picked up a lot of flavour in its time in wood and combines freshness with complexity. There’s a marked contrast between nose, palate and finish, but each element works well. In short – I’m a fan. It was worth the wait.

Reasonably priced at about £50, it’s now firmly on my list of world whiskies to recommend – tasty, pretty and not too dear.

It seems I am not their only fan, with Diageo’s Distill Ventures recently investing in the company. With some new cash behind them, as well as some rather canny early-days management of both money and casks, I’m hoping to see lots more from Starward and New World Whisky. Hopefully their next release won’t take quite as long to get to the UK.

JANUARY UPDATE: 5 UNDER £50

The darkest, coldest and leanest month of the year is coming to a close but, even with belts tightened after the holidays, gorgeous whisky doesn’t need to be out of reach. These modestly priced but meticulously crafted drams will brighten and warm the bleakest day – only a handful left…

Spicy & sweet

85.33 Poolside posing in Beverly Hills
Bathing beauties on shiny waxed wooden decks and freshly cut lawns. Glossy apples, cherries, ginger…
Age: 9 years
Cask: First fill ex-bourbon barrel
Price: £45.10

Young & spritely

70.12 Heady, Zingy and Fizzy
A strong exhilarating aroma greeted the Panel and got us all very excited. It was an array of heady aromas…
Age: 9 years
Cask: Refill ex-bourbon barrel
Price: £47.50

39.119 Strictly whisky
A polished, real wood, oak parquet dance floor with tropical, fruity and perfumed aromas surrounding the dancers let us drift off as we carried on daydreaming…
Age: 10 years
Cask: Refill ex-bourbon hogshead
Price: £47.00

Light & delicate

58.18 Toffee and sunny, runny honey.

The nose conveys camomile, lemon and laundry freshness and abundant fruity sweetness (jam tarts, Danish pastries, vanilla slices…
Age: 9 years
Cask: First fill ex-bourbon barrel
Price: £47.90

Juicy, oak & vanilla

39.115 Straight up-and-down.
Grass cuttings and dustiness of a village green cricket ground with aromas of linseed oil and leather…
Age: 10 years
Cask: Refill ex-bourbon hogshead
Price: £47.00 

Browse Current Outturn >
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Contact: sales@smws.com or call 0131 555 2929 (Mon-Fri 9am-4.45pm).

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This is your chance to join and to take advantage of their great offers!

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Lochside 52 year old

Distilled in Lochside Distillery – which was completely demolished in 2005 – and aged in a refill hogshead for 52 years. Bottled at cask a strength of 48.1% volume, non chill-filtered with its natural colour. One of only 83 bottles.

Official Tasting Notes

The nose is complex with notes of dark fruits, candle wax and furniture polish. The palate has more in the way of rich forest fruits, with additional hints of green moss and wood-fire smokiness. The finish is long and warm, with lingering oak notes.

£960 Click to buy

www.ralfy.com gets mixed messages from smelling and tasting an expensive blend with Whisky Review 570 – This is not a luxury Whisky

Hat-trick of award nominations for William Grant and Sons as Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival Whisky Awards first round judging takes place

William Grant and Sons has impressed an expert panel gathered to shortlist entries in the 2016 Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival Whisky Awards. The Glenfiddich 12, 18 and 21 year old expressions were shortlisted in all three of the award’s categories following a blind taste test on Speyside this week.

The judges – made up from a panel of eight industry experts – also put single malts from Glen Grant, Glen Moray and Cragganmore distilleries through to the final round.

The winner of each category is determined by visitors to annual five-day Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival, which takes place in venues across the drink’s spiritual home from April 28 to May 2. It’s the only awards scheme in the world where winners are determined by members of the public.

The six finalists were selected by judges out of 34 entries from distilleries across the Speyside region. The Glenfiddich 12 year old and Glen Grant’s 10 year old were selected for the malts under 12 – or no age statement – category. The finalists chosen for the 13 to 20 years section are the Glen Moray 16 year old and Glenfiddich 18 year old, while the category for malts over 21 is a head to head between Glenfiddich’s 21 year old and the Cragganmore 25 year old 2014 Special Release.

The awards are sponsored by Forsyths of Rothes – the coppersmiths responsible for building many of the pot stills in which the shortlisted single malts were distilled. The panel included a range of specialist whisky writers, connoisseurs and retailers.

Becky Paskin, editor of whisky website scotchwhisky.com, joined the panel for the first time. She says, “The traditional perception of Speyside whiskies is that they are all light and fruity in style, but this notion is outdated. If there’s one thing the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival Whisky Awards demonstrates, it’s that as well as owning the greatest concentration of whisky distilleries in Scotland, Speyside is also home the broadest palette of flavours.

“Among the entrants in this year’s awards were heavily Sherried and spicy beauties, sweet yet peaty malts and even some intriguing wine cask finishes, all of which challenge the opinion of how a typical Speyside whisky should taste. If ever there was a whisky category offering something for everyone, this would be it.”

Renowned whisky aficionado and writer Martine Nouet has served on the panel many times in the past, but says she always comes away surprised at the range of malts on offer. “I have taken part in the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival Whisky Awards judging since its beginning and every year, I am amazed at the growing diversity of aromatic profiles expressed by the whiskies in competition.

“This year, I found that the category 12 and under was the most challenging, with many younger whiskies than previously presented and more cask finishes. It is interesting to note that the finalist this year is the longest established single malt in Speyside. Tradition rubs shoulders with innovation, which results in offering whisky lovers a larger choice of styles and aromatic profiles. Wonders never cease,” she says.

Chairman of the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival, James Campbell, adds, “The judging process resulted in a lot of different opinions; the general consensus of the group wasn’t uniform across the board, which I think reflects the personal preferences and tastes of whisky drinkers everywhere. There was a lot of conversation happening throughout and many of the judges surprised themselves when scoring the malts, which is a testament to the blind tasting session.”

The final judging session and awards prize-giving will take place at a ceilidh on Sunday, May 1.

Tickets for all events in the 2016 Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival programme, including the roving judging sessions, can be bought via the website – http://www.spiritofspeyside.com/ from February 2. Keep up-to-date with the Festival on social media – facebook.com/WhiskyFestival and @spirit_speyside on Twitter.

Notes

The Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival is committed to promoting responsible drinking. Visitors travelling to and from festival events can take advantage of a range of transport options. Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival has received funding from Highlands and Islands Enterprise and is also financially supported by many other private and public partners.

The Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival is part financed by the European Regional Development Fund Programme 2014 to 2020. The Scottish Government is the managing authority for the European Regional Development Fund Programme.

Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design

2016 will shine a spotlight on Scotland’s achievements in innovation, architecture and design through a wide-ranging, variety of new and existing activity.

The Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design will run from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2016 and will build on the momentum generated by the 2015 Year of Food and Drink as well as previous years including Homecoming Scotland 2014, the Year of Creative and the Year of Natural.

Through a series of exciting events and activity, the year will showcase Scotland’s position as an “innovation nation”, its outstanding built heritage, and its thriving, internationally acclaimed fashion, textiles and design sector.

The Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design is a Scottish Government initiative being led by VisitScotland, supported by partners including Scottish Government, Creative Scotland, Architecture + Design Scotland, Scottish Tourism Alliance, Scottish Enterprise, The National Trust for Scotland, Historic Scotland, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS).

The Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design events fund is managed by EventScotland, part of VisitScotland’s Events Directorate

About EventScotland:

EventScotland is working to make Scotland the perfect stage for events. By developing an exciting portfolio of sporting and cultural events EventScotland is helping to raise Scotland’s international profile and boost the economy by attracting more visitors. For further information about EventScotland, its funding programmes and latest event news visit http://www.eventscotland.org/. Follow EventScotland on Twitter @EventScotNews.

EventScotland is a team within the VisitScotland Events Directorate, the national tourism organisation which markets Scotland as a tourism destination across the world, gives support to the tourism industry and brings sustainable tourism growth to Scotland. For more information about VisitScotland see http://www.visitscotland.org/ or for consumer information on Scotland as a visitor destination see http://www.visitscotland.com/.