With the latest release I was delighted to make a small but significant change to our labels. They now rightly state that the whisky or rum was “Selected By Mark and Kate Watt” and not just by me. It took a bit of convincing to get Kate to put her name on the label, but […]
Today is International Whisky Day – a day set up in honour of the late great Michael Jackson, the original beer and whisky writer – so I thought it was a good time to share some of my memories of him. I was fortunate enough to meet Michael several times and on occasion I […]
We were delighted to hear that our good friends at Elixir Distillers recently had their planning application for a distillery on Islay approved. We are delighted for several reasons; 1) More Islay whisky – what’s not to like? 2) The team at Elixir Distillers are a great bunch and some of the greatest whisky minds […]
As many of you will know, as well as whisky I am also a huge fan of beers, in particular Belgian beers, with a soft spot for Geuze Boon. I do also have a fondness for a good stout so when I saw the beers from Spey Valley Brewery advertised for sale I had no […]
The other night I was reading the Malt review of Mount Gay and it rekindled a couple of memories in me as to why I have always had a bit of a soft spot for Mount Gay. One memory of Mount Gay was a bit of a cloudy one, I used to share a house […]
I was in a bar…. in Japan, when I had the worst whisky I have ever tried. As with many of my stories, this one started in a bar in Japan. Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned up side down when I tried the worst whisky I have […]
I am sure many of you will be aware of the new Youtube sensations that are Dave Broom and Arthur Motley and their excellent new series The Liquid Antiquarian. Arthur and Dave are people I have known for a long time and have huge admiration for – not only are they two of the nicest […]
I am not generally a huge fan of finished whiskies, I tend to find that often the balance is not quite right, or the whisky and whatever liquid was in the secondary cask clash and don’t really come together, but almost remain as two separate drinks. What can also happen is the secondary cask can […]
As many of you will have seen on social media already Campbeltown Whisky Company Ltd (CWC Ltd) have released a second brand of whisky – The Electric Coo Series; a selection of six whiskies all bottled from a single cask, at cask strength and without chill filtering or colouring. To paraphrase the famous song – […]
The Horrors of Blind Tastings I have to admit I love and hate blind whisky tastings in equal measures. I love hosting them and trying to trick people like I did at Maltstock a few years ago when two of the whiskies in the line up were exactly the same whisky with very few […]
