The Last Drop – 48yo whisky

The Last Drop Distillers is a brand you may not have heard of, much less seen a bottle of at your local liquor outlet.  If not by design, then this is certainly by necessity – for this is a label that deals with whisky that is both scarce and small scale.

The story of the company itself is a wonderfully rich, dare I say, romantic tale:  Three gentlemen, all long involved in the whisky and drinks trades, had remarkable and successful years and careers in the industry.   Between them, they were behind the creation and development of brands such as J&B Rare, Johnnie Walker, Chivas Regal, The Classic Malts range, Baileys and Malibu.

And so, despite reaching that time in life when retirement beckons, these gentlemen instead decided to team up in 2008 and form a new force:  A company that focussed on the world’s finest, rarest, and most exclusive spirits.  The Last Drop Distillers Limited is thus not a distillery, nor a single malt, but a brand and label that sources, bottles, and releases exceptionally old and rare spirits.

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What whisky bloggers are doing wrong…

(or why Whisky Bloggers are annoying a lot of people right now)

So who was the first whisky blogger?  Was it before or after WordPress made this caper so easy?  Well, it was before.  A long time before.  Back in 1887, in fact.  For that is when an ambitious chap by the name of Alfred Barnard first approached a distillery and cheekily asked for a free sample so he could write about it.  One hundred and thirty years later, and it turns out several thousand wannabes are following suit.

Yes, I’m aware of the irony.  But bear with me…

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The Top Four Whiskies for Christmas

{Update: The article below was first written in 2014 and has been superseded/replaced with a more up-to-date article.  You should read the updated article here.}

Need a whisky for Christmas?  Once upon a time, whisky was whisky, and Santa wasn’t too discerning when it came to what special dram you left out for him on Christmas Eve.  In decades gone by, there was also less distinction – by both marketers and  consumers – about the significance of sherried versus non-sherried whisky.  Of course, with the huge decline in sherry consumption and the corresponding rise in the cost of sherried single malts, the distinction and noise around sherried whisky is now more stark and louder than ever.  (And that’s before we even mention words like European oak or sulphur candles!)

When I first started hosting whisky tasting events in 2001, I did a fair bit of freelance work for Macallan.  This was back when the core range was simply the 12yo, 15yo, 18yo, and 25yo – all of them made with Golden Promise barley, and all matured exclusively in sherry casks.   I used to describe the flavour of these sherried whiskies as being like “Christmas pudding in a glass”.  The really great sherried whiskies showcased all of the dried fruits you’d find in Christmas pudding (e.g. raisins, sultanas, dates, cherries, apricots, etc); as well as the butterscotch and toffee notes you’d associate with the brandy butter or Christmas sauce.   Some of them also exhibited a bit of the spice that we commonly associate with European oak, and occasionally there was also the pleasant bitterness of cloves and Christmas mince pies, or the sweetness of cinnamon.

As such, for me, if I’m going to drink a single malt at Christmas time, it’s got to be a sherried whisky.  And, certainly, when it comes time on the 24th to put out a dram for Santa, it’s been a Glenfarclas for jolly Saint Nick every year since my kids arrived on the scene.

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