Ah, the infamous old-time favourite Chicken Cock Whiskey!

Nope, me neither. It’s a thing though.

Established in 1856, this Kentucky whiskey had to move its production to Canada during the dark days of Prohibition – smuggled into the country in tins, Chicken Cock was still being served in speakeasies such as the legendary Cotton Club thanks to the well-developed bootlegging network.

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We are currently in the midst of The Balvenie Whisky Fête, which runs from 13th-15th June, with many of you no doubt planning on heading down there this weekend.

London’s Tavistock Square Gardens has been transformed into a whisky wonderland complete with two handcrafted domes made from cask staves as well as The Balvenie Craftman’s Bothy. David Stewart, the great Malt Master who has who has worked at the distillery for over 50 years is on hand to run tutored tastings amongst various other workshops and goings on.

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Would you believe it's been over a quarter of a year since the last batch of releases from That Boutique-y Whisky Company? Amazing. It's almost like we had other stuff on.

Well – all that 'being about the place' nonsense is behind us now (for a bit), and due to a freshly sustained ankle injury (The other one for those of you paying attention. Gah) I'm at liberty to take a few moments to tell you about the new releases which sit before me today.

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It's fair to say that Feis Ile aka That Boutique-y Whisky Company On Tour 2013 was a rip-roaring success! Enjoyment was had by all, 3 fantastic Competitions were run and entered into with rabid enthusiasm. And nobody died, either! Great success.

From our Distillery Dog Peaty getting lost (and getting found again) to our Message in a Bottle Islay Treasure Hunt, to loads of you literally flagging us down with the signal, you (yes, you) all made this our best Fèis Ìle yet! We’re already hard at work planning next year’s shenannigans...

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The final day of Feis Ile 2013 was of course Ardbog Day! Although thoroughly shattered, we nonetheless dragged ourselves down to the Kildalton coast with dogged enthusiasm!

(The good thing about Ardbeg of course is that they have Ardbeg there. Mmm... Ardbeg.)

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‘International Port Ellen Day’ 2013 (#iPed2013), organised by the one and only Jon Beach, took place on the Friday during Fèis Ìle this year.

First though, we paid a visit to Bunnahabhain and even solved the mystery of what really happened to the nearby Wyre Majestic, now shipwrecked off the coast...

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– He came from the planet of soy.

– The cool guy...

– Kikkoman!

...but who's this foreigner disrupting the established order of things? Kilcho–man?! I guess we’ll just have to settle this the Harry Hill way...

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It seems that everywhere we've gone this week people have been talking about one thing in particular: the mysterious bottles that have washed up on the shores of Islay containing messages written by "Doc" Emmett L. Brown way back in 1859!

This was, as you may know unless you've been living under a rock (you do read all my blogs with avid enthusiasm, right?), part of our third competition for Feis Ile 2013. Everybody who found a bottle was told to meet at the clock tower at Laphroaig distillery at 12 noon on Wednesday 29th May 2013 - their prize for doing so was a full bottle of That Boutique-y Whisky Company's brand new Caol Ila (worth £54.95) AND the chance to feature on our next cultish comic book-style label!

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"I want to go on a fairy hunt", I proclaimed. No, I hadn't had some inexplicable bout of homophobia (although judging by the reaction I seemed to provoke, this is presumably how it came across).

Fairies or 'little people' as they are also known (it is actually bad luck to refer to them as ‘fairies’ or ‘faeries’ in some places) are common throughout Gaelic folklore. They're not tiny little butterfly-winged creatures either, but rather can be up to a few feet tall with the potential to also shapeshift. Tricksy and sometimes mischievous (starting to sound a bit like Loki) they are to be respected, if only with a healthy slice of whimsy.

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The day ended with a game of Islay-opoly where three people landed on Caol Ila at the same time at one point (apt).

That morning we had headed over to Port Askaig, to that very distillery, to continue the search for our lost dog Peaty...

Have you seen him?

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