INTRODUCING THE VAULT

The vault is a select range of whiskies that have become very rare or discontinued from both our own ranges and commercial stocks, with as few as 1-2 bottles available for some whiskies once they have gone then they have truly gone!

We will be adding some exclusive releases to the site over the coming months. Kicking the 2014 selection off is the Clynelish 24 year old single cask, next month we have a Miltonduff reaching its 20th year in the cask we will be bottling it towards the middle or latter part of the month, the new labels will be White and Burgundy with exclusive to London printed on the side of the Label.

Longrow 18 is changing this year, gone is the old Purple box and buff label for the much cleaner white label and open fronted box, this will of course lead to a run on the old Purple box ranges so get in quickly before they all go to the collectors.

The new Longrow 18 is a much more scarce beast this year with only a few cases, given it’s the first of the new design we expect demand to be high for this product when it arrives this week.

Clynelish Distillery 1990 24 Year Old Special Bottling – 70cl / 47.5%

Bottled exclusively for Cadenhead’s London, only 228 bottles from the cask.

Nose: Mandarins, lemon thyme, sweet vanilla and juicy red apples.

Palate: White chocolate, orange bitters, pine needles and custard creams. Rich rounded palate lifts again with a hint of sweet sea breeze.

Finish: Crisp and zesty, touch of brown sugar, banana bread and more white chocolate. This is a great dram form the start to the finish.

Longrow from Springbank Distillery 18 Year Old – 70cl / 46%

Last chance to own the purple box

Nose: This whisky has an incredibly sweet nose with some savoury notes peeking through. Marshmallows in abundance – the vanilla variety, with icing sugar and foam bananas adding to the sweetness. Read more

Palate: This dram coats your palate in a waxy fashion with its continuing sweet flavours as described on the nose. But there is also the familiar, well balanced trace of smoke which makes… Read more

Finish: The creaminess of this whisky means it doesn’t go away – you feel the warmth of this Longrow all the way down to your boots, creamy, sweet with a gentle smoke finish.

Hazelburn Bond Reserve Sherry Cask from Springbank Distillery 8 Year Old – 70cl / 57.4%

One of the old Cadenhead’s Bond Reserve editions of Hazelburn only 290 bottles originally made.

Nose: Sweet fruity nose at first then some aromatic spiced chocolate.

Palate: Very rich across the palate with an abundance of sweet sherry tones lingering with a sweet coco taste and fresh tobacco leaves.

Finish: A long finish with a perfect balance of flavours that seem to linger from across the middle of the palate, warming sweetness once would expect from an older dram than this.

www.ralfy.com having a history lesson with Whisky Review 458 – exploring a historic blended scotch

LCBO RELEASES FIRST ONTARIO SINGLE MALT WHISKY 

Vaughan, Ontario, May 23, 2014 – Still Waters Distillery announces the release of its STALK & BARREL SINGLE MALT WHISKY at the LCBO. This is the first Single Malt Whisky to be distilled, aged and bottled in Ontario. The whisky, available in limited quantities, will be launched at the Summerhill LCBO store on May 31, 2014. The distillers will be on hand from 11:30am until 3:30pm to meet customers, offer samples, and sign bottles. They will also be at the Oakville LCBO on Cornwall Drive on June 7 from 4:00pm to 7:00pm.  

STALK & BARREL SINGLE MALT WHISKY was first released last year directly by the distillery and in other markets, but this is the first LCBO release. It has received excellent reviews from critics and consumers alike. It is bottled as a single cask offering in individually numbered bottles. The whisky is made by hand from 100% Canadian two-row malted barley in small batches in a custom built copper pot still. It is bottled with no chill-filtering or artificial colouring. 

Distiller and company co-founder, Barry Bernstein, said, “We set out to restore the tradition of small batch craft distilling in Ontario that goes back centuries. We are excited to be releasing Ontario’s first craft whisky.” Barry Stein, co-founder and fellow distiller remarked, “We are pleased with the support the LCBO has given to locally produced products that consumers are now seeking”. 

Still Waters Distillery is Ontario’s first craft distillery. Their focus is on handmade whiskies, with their STALK & BARREL SINGLE MALT WHISKY being the first release. A 100% rye whisky will be released in the fall. They also produce an award-winning blended Canadian whisky, and an award-winning vodka. They are the recipient of the 2013 Canadian Whisky Awards, “Distillery of the Year”.

First Release Early-Bird tickets now on sale – 2 for £40 – Click here or on the banner to book. Only 100 pairs available. Second release will be 2 for £50…

Don’t tell anyone…except those you want to come!

See you there.

This week Joe Ellis reviews the Glendronach Cask Strength Batch 2. 

http://youtu.be/Y0Y5mkTQZXg 

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Spencerfield Spirit Shine at the Scotland Food & Drink Excellence Awards 2014 

Fife drinks company Spencerfield Spirit is celebrating after being crowned a double winner at the national Scotland Food & Drink Excellence Awards. 

Spencerfield scooped the coveted Drinks (alcoholic) category with its whisky, The Feathery and also the overall Small Business of the Year award. 

The winners were announced last night (Thursday 22 May) at a glittering awards ceremony, hosted by Scottish television presenter Kaye Adams, at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. With 22 award categories celebrating excellence across Scottish food and drink, the Scotland Food & Drink Excellence Awards showcased a broad spectrum of food and drink companies from across the country. 

Commenting on the awards, Alex Nicol, Managing Director of the Spencerfield Spirit Company said:  “We are delighted to be recognised at the prestigious Scotland Food & Drink Excellence Awards and it’s particularly exciting that The Feathery has secured its first award since launching earlier this year.

“We are also thrilled to be recognised as overall small business of the year – 2014 is going to be a very exciting year for the business and we are pleased to have got off to such a great start.”

The award judges tasted 115 food and drink entries and examined submissions for 154 entries from 102 businesses across all the categories. 

The Feathery is a blended malt which has been entirely matured in first class sherry wood which makes it slightly sweeter, fuller and more rounded than standard malts. It is the first expression of a range being developed by Spencerfield to celebrate the original Scottish craftsmanship.

For more information, please visit http://www.spencerfieldspirit.com/.

The Whiskey Ice Co. Partners with Sharper Image to sell its Spherical Ice Ball Makers 

Dallas, TX, USA – May, 21 2014 – The Whiskey Ice Co has teamed up with Sharper Image, one of the most well known retailers of gadgets and specialty gifts, to sell their 2.6 inch (66mm) Spherical Ice Ball Maker for only $399.99 (approximately £248). The partnership strengthens The Whiskey Ice Co.’s position as a leader in the manufacture and sales of the world’s best and most affordable ice ball maker set. 

The Whiskey Ice Co. Spherical Ice Ball Maker is the only complete package on the market at this price point and includes everything required to create 2.6 inch (66mm) spherical ice balls: 

• 2.6 inch (66mm) Spherical Ice Ball Maker Set • Ice Tongs • Flexible Ice Plug Molds • Water Catch Drip Pan 

According to The Whiskey Ice Co., the 2.6 inch (66mm) Ice Ball Maker size is an optimized size that fits in more glassware sizes and allows for a normal volume of your favorite beverage to be served (approximately 1.5 -2.5 oz. for a double old fashioned glass) and can be used in a variety of glass sizes and shapes. 

“We have always been big fans of Sharper Image and we wanted to offer our product to the thousands of loyal Sharper Image customers that trust the Sharper Image name” says Mr. Clinton Compton, Marketing Director for The Whiskey Ice Co., “the strategic move to allow our product to be sold by one of the preeminent specialty gift retailers really sets our product apart because Sharper Image is a brand people trust. We are proud to be working with such a strong brand, like Sharper Image.” 

Sharper Image offers The Whiskey Ice Co. Spherical Ice Ball Maker in Silver as part of their Kitchen and Entertaining category of products. 

The Whiskey Ice Co. offers a variety of products with new products on the way, including apparel and vintage bar & liquor memorabilia. The Whiskey Ice Co. operates from 9am to 5pm US/Central time, Monday through Friday. Wholesale and custom-branded reseller opportunities are available for retailers and distilleries who would like to offer The Whiskey Ice Co. Spherical Ice Ball Maker to their customers, including with their own brand and other color options are available, including copper, black and more. 

View the video of The Whiskey Ice Co. Spherical Ice Ball Maker in action:

http://whiskey-ice.com/images-video/videos.html

Bowmore Darkest and Montezuma’s Chocolate

With the Islay Festival of Malt and Music rapidly approaching, the island’s whiskies have been much on my mind. A little while back, we took delivery a big box of chocolate from the folks at Bowmore, along with instructions to give them away free with their whisky. While we obviously thoroughly endorse such actions, we also made sure we did some quality control, and did some tasting of the chocolate. We are professionals.

In short: it is very nice and we’re giving away a bar with every bottle of Bowmore Darkest 15 year old.

It’s really rather tasty

The people behind the chocolates themselves are Montezuma’s, a chocolatier of whom I have long been fond – I used to work a short walk from their Spitalfields market shop and spent many a lunchtime stocking up on chocolate bars to keep me going through the afternoon. And the next day.

Sticking whisky in chocolate is not a recent invention, but the recent rise in quality of boutique chocolate in the UK has meant that these days, it’s a lot easier to find something that’s quite a bit better than the archetypal 1970s’ cooking chocolate filled with eye-wateringly alcoholic cherry brandy. Montezuma’s are at the front of that wave, and they’ve worked with Bowmore to create something a bit special, combining flavours that bring out the best in the whisky.

First up, the whisky itself. Bowmore Darkest is matured for 12 years in bourbon casks before being finished for three in oloroso sherry casks. With the recent love heaped on Bowmore fully matured in sherry casks (Devil’s Casks, we’re looking at you – dear Bowmore, please do a batch 2…), it’s unsurprising that this has picked up in popularity as more people have realised how well peat and sherry go together.

Bowmore 15yo Darkest. 43%. £48.95 (Special Price – usually £51.25)

Nose: Leathery sherry notes, burnt sugar, medicinal edges, tar, some coal smoke and charred fruit (the puffed-up burnt raisins on the edges of a fruit cake), all backed up by a touch of lighter fruit and some cream. More sweetness develops as it sits in the glass, as well as some dark rubber notes.

Palate: Pungent fruit and sour butter up front, with woody tannins coming in fast, and touches of menthol and black liquorice developing. Behind that is woody spice, cinnamon sugar and blackcurrants, with fruity chew flavours appearing as it sits in the glass. A touch of water sweetens things up and brings out some lebkuchen spiciness.

Finish: Dark wood, sour red grapes, tannic hints and a touch of green apple.

Comment: A solid sherried whisky, with Bowmore’s more gentle smokiness not dominating, as happens with some other sherried Islays. Well-balanced and a good intro into the world of smoky, sherried drams. While I think I know whisky pretty well, I’m not quite so hot on chocolate. As such, I enlisted the help of two of the office chocolate fiends: Stu, our website front-end developer, and Matt, the designer behind the look of most of our newsletters. We sat down with a bar of chocolate, did some munching and wrote some notes:

Bowmore Darkest Decadent Dark Chocolate

Nose: Rich, dark cocoa with touches of tobacco leaf, milky coffee, sweet treacle and a touch of sour berry fruit.

Palate: Good, slightly bitter, snappy textured chocolate on the outside, followed by a sweeter, creamier truffle filling, with dried fruit, gentle peat smoke and hint of oak.

Finish: A touch of salted caramel quickly fades to leave a long and lingering bittersweet cocoa note.

Comment: Tasty chocolate, complementing the darker flavours of the Bowmore Darkest with some fruity dark chocolate and a touch of creaminess from the truffle. Tasty on its own or as either an accompaniment to or an excuse to have a dram.

We’re running our free chocolate offer as long as we have the chocolate – just grab a bottle of Bowmore Darkest 15 and we’ll send one to you.

Originally published on The Whisky Exchange Blog – Bowmore Darkest and Montezuma’s Chocolate