CASK TRADE NAMED AS ONE OF THE FASTEST-GROWING COMPANIES IN EUROPE

Cask Trade has been listed in the Financial Times 1000 fastest-growing companies in Europe.

The London-based cask whisky business is ranked 146th in the prestigious FT1000 list published this month (March).

Cask Trade is a cask whisky merchant for collectors, enthusiasts and independent trade bottlers and is the only cask focussed business to be recognised in the annual list.

Ranking Europe’s most promising companies exhibiting the highest levels of absolute growth and compound annual growth, the FT1000 report is published by the Financial Times in partnership with research company Statista.

As well as ranking within the top 15% of all companies in Europe, Cask Trade comes in as the 4th highest overall in the Food and Beverage sector and is ranked 29th highest of the UK businesses.

Commenting on the achievement, founder and CEO Simon Aron says: “It’s extremely rewarding for myself and the team to be recognised in the FT1000 list among the fastest-growing companies in Europe.
“In 2021 we opened in Asia with an office in Hong Kong. In 2024 we celebrate our fifth year and we are now proud to be selling casks of whisky and other fine spirits on every continent around the world,’ says Simon.

The FT1000 ranking comes hot the heels of Cask Trade being named as one of the UK’s most innovative new businesses when it was placed 24th in the StartUps 100 2024 index and follows a 21st position listing in the 2023 Sunday Times Hundred fastest-growing private companies in Britain.

Despite difficult trading conditions over the last few years, Cask Trade continues to grow its team and customers.
Recently celebrating their 5th anniversary, which will be marked by a tasting event in June, Cask Trade also offers market leading services including Auction Your Cask (founded in 2020) – the world’s first online auction platform for cask whisky and other cask spirits – and Regent Street Cask Bottlers (founded 2021) – a bottling service for cask owners looking to bottle their casks.

The FT1000 ranking, compiled with German research company Statista, showcases those European companies that have grown fastest. They are listed in order of highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in revenue over the period 2019 to 2022. This year, a minimum average growth rate of 36.3 per cent required for inclusion.

To view the full FT1000 list visit: https://www.ft.com/ft1000-2024

ABOUT CASK TRADE:

Founded in 2018 by Simon Aron in partnership with several of the world’s foremost whisky masters, including Keeper of the Quaich Colin Hampden-White, Cask Trade buys and sells exceptional cask whiskies.

The company is unique because it owns all the casks it sells, giving the customer 100% transactional guarantee. Cask Trade only sells whole casks: it is not a whisky cask broker and it does not offer fractional sales.

A passionate whisky collector for more than 20 years, Simon Aron suffered many false promises from whisky investment companies and this drove his ambition to create a real and trustworthy marketplace for whisky collectors and investors, and bottlers:

The company’s casks are held in the best HMRC bonded warehouses, regularly visited and approved by Cask Trade whisky masters. All stock holdings have a complete paper trail.
•    Delivery orders from supplier to Cask Trade
•    Invoices for transfer of ownership, storage insurance, re-gauging, sampling or movement
•    HMRC-issued WOWGR (warehouse keepers, warehouse premises, owner of goods and registered consigners): a fully regulated and closely monitored license requiring due diligence on suppliers as well as customers.
•    HMRC-issued AWRS Alcohol Wholesaler Registration Scheme: Licenced to wholesale, bottle and retail.

Included in its extensive list of customer services, Cask Trade’s rigorous processes means that the company will guarantee to buy back from its clients the casks they buy from and have had managed by Cask Trade.
It also offers:
•    Regular sampling and re-gauging of casks
•    Re-racking (sherry wine, port etc)
•    Estimates of bottles and strength in cask (effects of angels’ share 0ver years of maturations)
•    Financial modelling for each cask based on age and rarity with estimated % returns
•    Costings for bottling, labelling and shipping (duty & tax)
•    Regularly updated cask ownership guide which includes statistics from two authoritative third parties (independent of Cask Trade)
•    Cask Trade will arrange for clients to receive samples of their whiskies and visit their barrels(s), upon request – wherever possible.

Cask Trade started the first live auction website dedicated to exceptional whisky casks: auctionyourcask.com.

Hosted four times a year and helping private owners/investors sell their cask to independent bottlers and other investors all around the world. All casks will be re-gauged ready for auction and a full 70cl sample will be drawn so that bidders have the opportunity to try the whisky before they buy, wherever possible.
Cask Trade validate all the sellers and confirm proof of ownership and the history of the cask enabling bidders to safely buy. With complete transparency and no sellers’ fee customers receive the actual hammer price. The low buyers’ fee of 15% + VAT offer the opportunity to buyers, trade or private, to buy rare casks.

https://www.casktrade.com      https://www.auctionyourcask.com

Our March 2024 Auction ENDS SOON!

100th AUCTION!

Place your bids until 3pm (GMT) Sunday 24th March.

www.whiskyhammer.com

Every month, we present an incredible selection of whiskies and other fine spirits to our members right across the globe. You will find everything here from limited edition releases and vintage bottles to whole casks of rare whisky. There is certainly something for everyone – whether you are looking to collect, invest or enjoy!

Brora – 40 Year Old (1972) Cask Strength

Macallan – 1949 Millennium 50 Year Old

Karuizawa – 1999-2000 (Koi Fish Collection) Wealth Solutions (3 x 70cl)

Tomatin – 50 Year old (125th Anniversary) 70cl + 5cl

Ardbeg – 1976 (Single Cask #2390)

Highland Park – 1955 (R.W. Duthie for Corti Brothers) Narsai’s Restaurant (75cl)

Selling whisky? Why not arrange the pick-up of your bottles using our global courier service? If you’re based in Scotland, you might want to arrange the personal collection of your bottles. Wherever you’re based in the world, we will make getting your bottles into our monthly auction as simple as possible. Get in touch with the Whisky Hammer team now by dropping them a message at sales@whiskyhammer.com.

Old School Malts 31 Year Old Blended Malt Whisky

A Blended malt whisky from Signatory Vintage containing whiskies from a vast number of distilleries across Scotland, including many ‘ghost’ distilleries such as Dallas Dhu, Port Ellen, Rosebank, Lochside and More!

£294.95 >

This release contains whiskies from: Ardbeg, Balvenie, Bruichladdich, Banff, Brora, Caperdonich, Clynelish, Coleburn, Convalmore, Dallas Dhu, Dunglass, Dufftown, Glen Albyn, Glen Mhor, Glenfarclas, Glendronach, Glen Garioch, Glenugie, Glenlochy, Glenury, Imperial, Killyloch, Lagavulin, Laphroaig, Ledaig, Littlemill, Linlithgow, Lochside, Longrow, Macallan, Millburn, Oban, Pittyvaich, Pulteney, Port Ellen, Rosebank, Springbank, Scapa, Strathisla, Talisker and many more.

LAPHROAIG ELEMENTS 1.0

70cl | 58.6% ABV

The first release in the Elements series is a fusion of modern and traditional whisky making at the Laphroaig distillery. They have amped up the flavour by incorporating a larger mash tun (last used pre-1990) and using cloudy wort to add more peat and tropical fruit notes.

This experimental Single Malt is packed with flavours of charred sweet pineapple and cracked black pepper, alongside bold phenolic notes of smoke and peat. Packaged with a unique design inspired by images of the distillery expansion in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

£159.95

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TASTING NOTES:

NOSE
Salty and smoky bacon with woody bonfire embers that overlay hints of sweet strawberry jam and charred pineapple.

TASTE
Spicy and peppery flavour on the tongue with hints of tropical fruit followed by wintery cloves and liquorice.

FINISH
A warming and smoky mouthfeel with a drying, long peaty finish.

SCOTTISH ISLAND WHISKIES
ISLE OF ARRAN

A forerunner of the whisky revival of the 21st century, Arran distillery came online in 1995. Rather than pursuing a coastal profile like many of its fellow islanders, the small site at Lochranza produces grassy, honeyed single malts that performs well in a variety of cask types.

In 2019 it was joined by Lagg distillery, a sister site on the south of the island intended to produce a totally different style of whisky. Earthy and smoky with a wild aspect achieved through long fermentation, Lagg’s single malts are quickly establishing the distillery as a rising star in the Scottish islands.

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Scottish stovies and strange sheep are announced as the winning entries for The Glencairn Glass crime short story competition

A sinister story involving a Scottish recipe for ‘stovies’ and a grisly tale about the strange sheep of Greshornish have been chosen as the winning and runner-up stories in The Glencairn Glass crime short story competition this year.

The world’s favourite whisky glass – the Glencairn Glass – produced by Scottish glassware company Glencairn Crystal, has announced the winning author as Philip Wilson, and the runner-up author as Elisabeth Ingram Wallace, in its annual Scottish themed crime fiction competition, now in its third year.

Having supported and celebrated Scottish crime writing talent with its ongoing sponsorship of the prestigious McIlvanney and Bloody Scotland Debut crime-writing literary awards since 2020, the Glencairn Glass launched its very own crime short story competition in 2021.

The competition is run in partnership with Scottish Field Magazine and the Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival. Both novice and experienced crime writers are invited to curate “a crime story set in Scotland” in no more than 2000 words.

Over 140 stories were entered into the 2023/24 competition and the winner and runner-up were selected by a panel of three judges including Callum McSorley, a Glasgow based writer whose debut novel Squeaky Clean won this year’s Bloody Scotland McIlvanney Prize for the Scottish Crime Book of the Year. He was joined by Kate Foster; the Edinburgh based national newspaper journalist and author, whose debut novel The Maiden won this year’s Bloody Scotland’s Debut Prize. The third judge was Glencairn Crystal’s marketing director and experienced crime writer Gordon Brown.

The judges have revealed the winner and runner-up as follows: 

Winner: A Recipe For Stovies by Philip Wilson

The gruesome confession of a food blogger who sought revenge on her violent husband after suffering years of domestic abuse.

Philip Wilson is a writer living in Glasgow. He divides his free time between trying to wrangle his rebellious dog and writing off-kilter short fiction. Time and imagination willing, he’s planning to set to work on a full-length novel soon.

Philip said: “I’m ecstatic and really honoured to be selected as this year’s winner of the Glencairn Glass Short Story Competition. I stumbled across the competition by sheer luck but knew immediately that I wanted to submit something. No matter what I write, an element of Scotland seems to worm its way into the material somehow, so a crime story set in Scotland was the ideal opportunity to be playful with it. I just hope my story doesn’t put anyone off of stovies. It’s usually quite a benign dish, cholesterol notwithstanding”. 

Runner-up:  The Strange Sheep of Greshornish by Elisabeth Ingram Wallace 

A sinister tale of a disillusioned tourist guide on the Isle of Skye who sends badly behaved tourists to suffer the same fate as the mad sheep in Greshornish.

Elisabeth Ingram Wallace lives in a Skoda in Scotland, usually somewhere in the Highlands. Her short stories have won prizes including The Mogford Short Story Prize, ‘Writing the Future’ and a Scottish Book Trust ‘New Writers Award.’ Recent work has featured in SmokeLong Quarterly, Atticus Review, Barrelhouse, Wigleaf, and anthologies including ‘FUEL – an anthology of Prize Winning Flash Fictions’.

Elisabeth said: “Thank you so much to the judges and to all at the Glencairn Glass, I am delighted to be the runner up in such a fantastic competition. It is a great challenge to write such a short Short Story; under 2000 words is my absolute favourite length, a test to write but long enough to go a little wild and include the odd zombie sheep. I wrote this story in a Bothy near Neist Point over Christmas, while it rained and rained and rained, and it was a real escape to go and commit a few imaginary murders in the sunshine”.

Competition judge, Callum McSorley, commented: “It was a real honour to read the brilliant work submitted, and certainly made for some lively discussion during the judging process. The winner’s clever story format made excellent use of the limited space to tell a story equal parts funny and sinister which pulled all the judges in immediately. The runner-up’s scuzzy subversion of an imagined, idyllic Scottish Highlands was similarly smart, comic, and dark.”

Kate Foster said: “It was a huge pleasure to read such a brilliant variety of crime stories, and to see the talent in Scottish writing. The judging process was great fun with lots of debate, but we were unanimous in our favourites. The winning entry stood out to me as it was funny, clever, and served up with a flourish. The runner-up was brilliantly written with a really quirky twist.”

Glencairn’s marketing director Gordon Brown said: “The quality of the short stories we receive every year is amazing and as both a crime writer and the Marketing Director of Glencairn Crystal I’m delighted that a competition based around Scotland and Crime Fiction can deliver such great works”.

The first prize of £1,000 goes to Philip Wilson and runner up Elisabeth Ingram Wallace receives £500. Both writers also receive a set of six bespoke engraved Glencairn Glasses. The winning story will be published in the May issue of Scottish Field Magazine (on shelf from 5th April) and the runner up story will then be published on Scottish Field Magazine’s website; www.scottishfield.co.uk. Both stories will also be available to read on the Glencairn Glass website: www.whiskyglass.com.

Last year’s short story competition was won by Frances Crawford from Glasgow, whose captivating tale The Dummy Railway told the story of a disturbing discovery through the eyes of a young Scottish girl.  All previous winners’ stories can be viewed at www.whiskyglass.com

For further information about this year’s McIlvanney and Bloody Scotland Debut crime-writing prizes, as well as the Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival taking place in Stirling, Scotland, from the 13^th to 15^th September, please visit www.bloodyscotland.com.

About Glencairn Crystal and the Glencairn Glass:

The award-winning Glencairn Crystal Studio has been at the cutting edge of high-quality decanter and glassware design, innovation, and creativity for four decades. Regarded internationally as one of the finest crystal decanter and glassware manufacturers, the family-run Scottish company has hand-crafted prestigious decanters often for the rarest and most luxurious spirits ever released.

The Glencairn Glass for whisky was officially launched in 2001. Glencairn Crystal currently sell millions of these glasses globally every year making it the world’s favourite whisky glass.

We’re extremely excited to bring you our latest Malt of the Moment, saving a massive £10 on this heavenly single cask exclusive of ours.

A customer favourite, we’re surprised to still have some stock in our warehouse, although availability has now become very low. We need to make some room for new casks coming in, so don’t hesitate in stocking up on this delightful single cask before it goes for good!

This award winning single cask has been bottled from an Oloroso sherry butt at natural cask strength (59.5% vol) with no chill-filtration and without any additional colouring.

Already offering superb value but now at only £59.95 for a sherry matured single cask, it really is outstanding.

EU and International customers can shop VAT free bringing this bottle down to under £50 ex vat.

Award Winning Single Cask (Whisky Magazine)

5 Star Customer Review Rating

Rated 87/100 – Whiskynotes.be

Whisky Base Average Rating: 86.20

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We offer excellent International shipping rates, add any items to your basket to see the fast and great valued shipping options available to your country. Head over to Abbey Whisky via the link below to read the verified customer reviews our this excellent single cask exclusive. As ever if you have any questions at all, please just get in touch.

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BRAEVAL (BRAES OF GLENLIVET) DISTILLERY

34 Year Old 1989 Old & Rare Platinum (2023)

£451.92

Braes of Glenlivet 34 Year Old 1989 vintage Speyside single malt Scotch whisky. Single refill hogshead bottled October 2023 by Hunter Laing & Co. for the Old & Rare Platinum series. 170 numbered bottles. This gold-coloured whisky has a nose of vanilla ice cream with caramel sauce, yellow apple and barley sugar. Orange, ginger and a touch of cinnamon on the palate along with more vanilla, leading into a long finish with a touch of satisfying oak spice.

Braeval Distillery is situated on the north-eastern edge of the Grampian Mountains at Chapeltown in Speyside. Opened by Chivas Brothers as Braes of Glenlivet in 1973 and re-named Braeval in 1995, this malt whisky distillery sits at an altitude of 352m making it the highest working distillery in Scotland. A modern pagoda roof towers over an attractive and modern works with white-washed walls and dark slated roofs. Production from six stills is geared up for the blending market and whilst there have been no distillery releases it may be found in the Old Malt Cask and Signatory Vintage ranges.

Arran Signature Series Remnant Renegade Edition 1

The first of a new limited-edition series which showcases the diversity of Arran’s spirit, Remnant Renegade is a real snapshot into the world of Arran Single Malt over the years. A marriage of a kaleidoscope of casks, some from couple of years after the distillery was founded and some as recently as 2017, the majority are sherry hogsheads, sherry butts and bourbon barrels. Bottled at 46% abv, free from chill filtration.

The nose brings aromas of toffee apples, vanilla, cinnamon spice, star anise and strong orange blossom, before a silky smooth palate of light liquorice, menthol herbs, honey.

£82.00
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Free Next Day Delivery for 12 Months For just £14.95 you can enjoy free next day delivery on all your orders for a whole year! Geographic restrictions apply, see full T&Cs. Find out more ❯

Bunnahabhain 2001 22 Year Old, Signatory Vintage Cask #1438

From the Cask Strength Collection, this bottling being a Cask Strength of 56.5%

Distilled at Bunnahabhain Whisky Distillery on 8th October 2001
Bottled 9th February 2024
Matured in an oloroso sherry butt.
Cask Number 1438
One of 427 bottles.

Distilled at Bunnahabhain Distillery, Bottled by Signatory Vintage Scotch Whisky Co.

£210.00 >

TyndrumWhisky.com
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Tyndrumwhisky, Tyndrum
Crianlarich, Perthshire FK20 8RY
United Kingdom