Welcome to WhiskyIntelligence.com where we'll be gathering information on the whisky industry and scotch whisky news in the form of press releases, newsletters, events, tasting notes and comments.
Please submit your press releases, newsletters, events, tasting notes or comments.
New arrivals from independent bottler Signatory the proprietor of Edradour including Laphroaig, Imperial, Cambus, Highland Park, Coal Ila and this 16 Year Old from the Glenlivet distillery.
www.ralfy.com reviews an unofficial Mortlach instead of the new official and expensive Mortlachs with Whisky Review 443 – Mortlach 16yo @ 60.2% (Single Malts Of Scotland)
Diageo announced today that it is to launch J&B URBAN HONEY, a new Spirit Drink based on J&B Scotch Whisky, which has been designed to open up the category to a new generation of men and women.
J&B URBAN HONEY is a 35% ABV Spirit Drink made from J&B Scotch Whisky infused with honey and is a characterful drink that creates a balanced and smooth liquid. The taste has been created to be distinctively fresh when consumed neat, on the rocks or mixed in a cocktail.
J&B URBAN HONEY is clearly labelled as a Spirit Drink on its front label, while also differentiated from the parent brand with the use of a honeycomb pattern, a city skyline illustration and a prominent ‘bee’ illustration, ensuring compliance with Scotch Whisky Association guidelines.
Since its creation, J&B Scotch Whisky has been a bold and innovative brand with a witty, playful edge. As Dougal McGeorge – Global J&B Brand Director – explains this has been fundamental to the development of the new Spirit Drink: “Creation of J&B URBAN HONEY is true to the urban roots of the J&B brand and its reputation for re-invention in the whisky category. The rapid growth of flavoured Spirit Drinks made J&B a natural choice for us as we looked to drive innovation.”
J&B URBAN HONEY will be launched in Spain starting in April 2014.
Springbank Society 10th Anniversary Tasting
at 7.30pm on Thursday 3rd April 2104
at The Kilderkin, 65/67 Canongate, Royal Mile, Edinburgh
Springbank 17yo 12/90 – 02/08 refill port hogshead 570 bottles 51.5%
Springbank 14yo 06/92 – 03/07 Bourbon hogshead 265 bottles 55.3%
Hazelburn 8yo 07/98 – 07/06 refill sherry butt 600 bottles 58.7%
Springbank 9yo fresh rum butt 07/97 – 03/07 700 bottles 60.2%
Longrow 8yo 02/97 – 07/05 refill sherry butt 630 bottles 59.9%
Tickets – £26/23* see http://www.jollytopertastings.co.uk/ for tickets and further details.
*£3 discount for first timers and members, membership costs a mighty £10 and lasts for a nice round 13 months.
Mora’s Fine Wine Whiskey Tasting Event for World Whisky Day, May 17
Come taste over 25 whiskies from around the globe and celebrate World Whisky Day with Mora’s Fine Wine & Spirits at The Country Corner between 6-9pm on Saturday, May 17!
$24 per person before April 19
$30 per person after April 19
**space limited, ticket purchase required**
Ticket purchase includes sampling of over 25 fine whiskies, Whisky friendly snacks, Glencairn tasting glass, door prizes for lucky winners.
Some of our Featured Distillers: (check back for updates)
Amrut, Balcones, Benriach, Benromach, Breckenridge, Brenne, Corsair, FEW Spirits, Garrison Brothers, Glendronach, Glenrothes, Highland Park, Isle of Arran, Kentucky Bourbon Distillers, Kilchoman, Koval, New Holland, Nikka, Smooth Ambler, Tamdhu, Town Branch
About World Whisky Day: Now you may be thinking ‘isn’t every day a whisky day?’. Well kind of, however, World Whisky Day is about celebrating whisky/whiskey and about giving whisky global stage and global media attention for not just a day but for a considerable amount of time around this date. The purpose of this is to introduce whisky to people who have never tried it before and for those that already enjoy whisky to have something special.
Mora’s Fine Wine & Spirits
631-941-4458 sev.clemens@moraswines.com
Single-Malt Scotch Tasting
with Alastair Walker, Sales Director of BenRiach and GlenDronach
Tuesday, April 22nd
4:30 and 6:00
In 2004, Billy Walker and a group of investors bought BenRiach Distillery from Pernod Ricard and breathed a whole new life into it. It’s now regarded as producing some of the most characterful distillate in Speyside. In 2008 they bought the highland distllery GlenDronach, which produces a richly sherried single-malt. Billy’s son Alastair, BenRiach’s Sales Director, will be in the shop tasting us through some of the bottlings from both distilleries including some single-cask, cask-strength offerings. These casks represent great quality and fair value in a market where both are becoming increasingly rare. We’ll taste expressions ranging in character from classic speyside, rich sherry, peat, and combinations thereof. To complete the history, the group also purchased Glenglassaugh in 2013 but this sort of thing moves slowly, we hope to have some of their whisky in the near future.
Joe Howell
Federal Wine & Spirits
Phone: (617) 367-8605
The Relaxed Whisky Weekend
5 – 7 September 2014
Can we have a little bit of your time to update you about Maltstock 2014? A couple of things we would like to update you about. First of all:
Maltstock in “the World’s top 10 whisky shows” list
The Spirits Business Magazine put Maltstock in a list called “the World’s top 10 whisky shows”. Of course we are very happy and proud of this and would like to send a BIG “thank you” to all visitors and volunteers!
http://www.thespiritsbusiness.com/2014/03/the-worlds-top-10-whisky-shows/
The Ticket Shop
We are very proud to have a the new Maltstock ticket shop up and running with 3 tickets you can choose from:
Maltstock 2014 + accommodation
Maltstock 2014 No accommodation
Maltstock 2014 + accommodation +bedding
Please visit http://maltstock.com and go to the ticket shop or click following link http://maltstock.com/index.php/en/online-shop/buy-your-tickets-here
to buy your tickets.
Banners and wallpapers
We recently updated the press and media page of maltstock.com. Banners and wallpapers for pc and phone are available to use and share for free!
http://maltstock.com/index.php/en/press-media/logos-banners-etc
Introduction of new members
With this newsletter we will start to introduce our new members in the organizational team.
Starting with Klaas:
– Hi my name is Klaas Steenhuis, a primary school teacher. After visiting Maltstock every year and being a loyal member of Whiskyclub ‘t Woest Genoegen in Nijmegen I’m a member of the organizational team now. I started to develop an interest in Whisky back in 2004 and visited quite a lot whisky festivals since. At whisky festival The Hague I love being one of the tour guides introducing people to whisky. Through my whisky hobby I have met lots of nice people and made whisky friends all around the globe, especially on Islay :). Because of the enthusiastic members in our team and good ideas I’m convinced that Maltstock 2014 will be a success again.
Hope to see you at Maltstock 2014!
Klaas
Maltstock promo tour
Whisky festival Gent was good fun! Friday 28/03/2014 we will be heading to Groningen, do we see you there as well?
Whisky festival noord Nederland – 28\29\30\March – http://www.wfnn.nl/
Spirit of Speyside Whisky festival – 1\2\3\4\5\May – http://www.spiritofspeyside.com/
Dramboree – 4\5\6\July – http://www.dramboree.co.uk/
Annette, Bob, Jeroen, Klaas, Stan and Teun
www.maltstock.com
Gordon & MacPhail Mortlach
There’s a lot of talk in the whisky world at the moment about Mortlach. They’re not the most mainstream of distilleries, but they are much loved by whisky connoisseurs (or geeks, as I like to call us). However, Diageo have recently discontinued their one regular ongoing bottling, the 16 year old Flora & Fauna release, and have announced a new, premium range that will be arriving in June:
New. Shiny. Hopefully tasty.
We’re not going to talk about the new range yet, other than to show the rather blingy bottles in the piccy above, as we’ve not tasted it yet and don’t want to wade in to any debates about pricing and the like until we have. Reports are starting to surface that the spirit is really good and we are feeling encouraged.
We have also recently found a cache of the Mortlach Flora & Fauna 16 year old, so don’t fret about its disappearance quite yet (although don’t hang around for too long if you want a bottle). However, for those looking to the future and want something to keep you going when the Flora & Fauna runs out – step forward Gordon & MacPhail.
G&M are well known for putting out ridiculously good-value bottlings, mainly things that you don’t see elsewhere. While you get the slightly more quirky things, like their 8yo Bunnahabhain and Highland Park, and the Macallan Speymalts, you also get releases that would slot happily into most distillers’ ranges – step forward Longmorn 12, Linkwood 15 and 25, Old Pulteney 8 and 15, and, relevantly, Mortlach 15 and 21.
Coming in at about £45 and £70 respectively, they’re already competitively priced for 15 and 21 year old whiskies, but with the new Mortlach range on the horizon, they’re looking even better than ever. I recently cracked open a bottle of the 15yo at a tasting that I hosted in honour of my birthday (I hate organising parties, so thought that hosting a whisky tasting would get me out of doing one – it worked) and it went down particularly well:
Nose: Sugared raisins, buttery pastry, cinnamon toast, stewed apples, linseed oil, fruit gums and garibaldi biscuits. There are some dark notes hiding around the back, with a touch of liquorice and demerara sugar.
Palate: Lighter than the nose suggests, with sweetness and woody spice up front – sweet apple, nutmeg, cinnamon and a touch of clove. The buttery notes from the nose carry through, with darker and more savoury flavours developing – damp wood and mulching leaves.
Finish: Medium length, with anise and cinnamon providing heat that fades into apple skin, apple sauce and liquorice.
Comment: Not too sherried but showing off some sherry influence – good spice and dark fruit notes balanced by some more fresh and rich buttery notes. A great everyday whisky that firmly ticks the traditional Speyside box.
We suspect that the days of G&M’s prices on Mortlach staying where they are may well be numbered, but for now they are an easily obtainable, alternative source of Mortlach and we’d recommend checking them out sooner rather than later.
5007 Underwood Ave, Omaha NE 68132 dundeedell.com 402.553.9501
Rye Whiskey Tasting
BARRY CROCKETT JOINS THE WHISKY MAGAZINE HALL OF FAME
Barry Crockett, former Master Distiller at the Midleton Distillery, has become the 17th inductee into the coveted Whisky Magazine Hall of Fame.
Awarded by ex-editor of Whisky Magazine, Rob Allanson, at the publication’s annual awards ceremony in London, Crockett was recognised for his contribution to the growth of the Irish Whiskey category during his 47 year career with Irish Distillers.
Allanson commended Crockett for “redefining Irish whiskey by combining technology, innovation, and craftsmanship with a deep sense of history” and overseeing operations at Midleton during “some of the most eventful times in Irish whiskey’s history”.
Crockett’s award was supported by other key wins for Irish Distillers at the Icons of Whisky Rest of World* competition, including ‘Whisky Distiller of the Year’ for the third year running and ‘Whisky Visitor Attraction of the Year’ for the Old Jameson Distillery in Dublin. Final tasting results for the World Whiskies Awards were also revealed, with Redbreast 15 Year Old scooping ‘World’s Best Irish Pot Still’.
Irish Distillers’ success last week follows a groundbreaking medal win at New York’s Ultimate Spirits Challenge earlier this month, with Redbreast 21 Year Old awarded the Chairman’s Trophy in the Irish Pot Still Whiskey category. With a perfect 100 score, Redbreast 21 Year Old became the first Irish whiskey to ever achieve this feat and is the only spirit from any category to do so this year – it also marks the fifth consecutive year that a Redbreast expression has received the top Irish Pot Still Whiskey score.
Crockett, who was also recognised for his Outstanding Achievement at the International Spirits Challenge last year, said: “I am deeply honoured to join the list of whiskey greats in the Whisky Magazine Hall of Fame. The success of Irish whiskey around the world in recent years has given me a great deal of pleasure and I am particularly proud to have been able to contribute to its development. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at the Midleton distillery and I would like to thank, once again, everyone at Irish Distillers who has supported me over the last 47 years.”
Notes:
*Icons of Whisky Rest of World judges whiskey distillers based outside of Scotland and the USA
Icons of Whisky results:
Hall of Fame (17th Inductee) – Barry Crockett
Whisky Distiller of the Year (Rest of World) – Irish Distillers
Whisky Visitor Attraction of the Year (Rest of World) – Old Jameson Distillery
World Whiskies Awards results:
Redbreast 12 Year Old – World’s Best Irish Pot Still
Ultimate Spirits Challenge results (out of 100):
Blended Irish Whiskey:
93 Jameson Select Reserve Black Barrel
93 Jameson Rarest Vintage Reserve
93 Jameson Gold
93 Jameson 18 Years Old
92 Jameson 12 Years Old
92 Midleton Very Rare
92 Powers Gold Label
89 Jameson Original
Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey:
100 Redbreast 21 Year Old
96 Powers Signature Release
94 Powers John’s Lane Release
94 Redbreast 15 Year Old
94 Redbreast 12 Year Old
94 Redbreast 12 Year Old Cask Strength
92 Green Spot
92 Midleton Barry Crockett Legacy
About Irish Distillers Pernod Ricard
Irish Distillers Group was formed in 1966, when a merger took place between Irish whiskey distillers, John Power & Son, John Jameson & Son and the Cork Distillery Company. In an attempt to reverse the decline in Irish whiskey sales, the board of directors decided to close the existing distilleries in Cork and Dublin, and to consolidate production at a new purpose-built facility.
A site alongside the existing distillery in Midleton, Co. Cork was chosen as the location for the new distillery, as there was no room for expansion in Dublin. Both the Old Jameson Distillery and the Old Midleton Distillery currently operate as visitor centres attracting over 330,000 visitors annually. Following an early unsolicited takeover offer and one of the most protracted battles in Irish corporate history made by GrandMet, Allied-Lyons and Guinness, Irish Distillers was taken over by Pernod Ricard in June 1988 with the support of the management and employees.
Irish whiskey brands within the Irish Distillers’ portfolio include Jameson, Paddy and Powers, with Single Pot Still brands, Green Spot, Yellow Spot, Redbreast and the much-revered Midleton, which includes prestigious expressions such as Midleton Barry Crockett Legacy and Midleton Very Rare.
