Astonishing.

It’s an easy term to bandy around (and god knows I’m possibly more guilty of doing so than most), but from time to time, one is simply so taken aback that the term “astonishing” is really all that fits the bill. I found myself using that particular word on approximately a dozen occasions, when my good lady wife and I visited Purl earlier this year.

Just as it is usually possible to accurately assess the competence of a curry house by ordering a simple Madras, the ‘control’ drink in any half-decent cocktail bar, for me, is a martini cocktail. Good glassware – points; correctly chilled glass – yet more points; really, really good Sicilian lemons for the twist, many points. If, however, as in the case of one restaurant recently visited who shall remain nameless – you serve it in a chipped glass, complete with crushed ice, and a slice of lemon, you’re scoring very low indeed. More...

Following our intrepid journey to Islay in May, we were invited back to brave the gale force winds and torrential rain to attend a very special event at the island’s youngest distillery.

We left early, and headed to Kilchoman for the launch of their new bottle, as well as a new limited edition, cask strength distillery-only number. More...

Sadly, due to the sheer number of brilliant whisky blogs out there, we could only invite ten to participate in our Bloggers’ Blend competition. We felt simply awful about limiting it in this way; it was like we’d discovered utopia but, due to out-dated licensing laws, were forced to allow just 10 people in.

In response to this, some bloggers sent us tear-stained letters, one fled to Nepal and now makes and sells terracotta pots, and, in protest, one has pledged to talk exclusively through a Kazoo. More...

A couple of weeks back, a contingent of Chaps from Master of Malt attended the brand new Boisdale over at Canary Wharf, for an extra special Old Pulteney tasting.

The tasting was led by Lucas of Edinburgh Whisky Blog fame and now brand ambassador for Inver House.

First off, the venue was fantastic. The Boisdale over at Victoria is superb, but the new one, right in the heart of Canary Wharf, is astonishing. On the 2nd floor (the whisky bar/jazz club) is an enormous window that spans one side of the room entirely, and it overlooks the Credit Suisse building, and beyond that, the Thames. It was an idyllic setting as we sat at the bar enjoying a couple of G&Ts prior to the tasting. More...

Sadly, when we awoke on Saturday, we discovered that there had been “poorly defined ferry issues”. This meant we couldn’t attend Ardbeg’s distillery day, and instead we had to pack our things and race across the island to reach the morning boat. You can imagine our chagrin. It looked to be a great day and the weather was splendid, complete with blue skies and, for the first time in over a week, we were thrilled to see our tired bodies were casting shadows on the ground. This felt like a good omen for our Lord of the Rings-style quest home (in this case, back to the Shire). More...

For the first time ever, one of France’s big Cognac houses has started putting age statements on its products. Courvoisier have begun labelling Cognacs just like we do in the whisky industry, where the number reflects the age of the youngest spirit in the bottle.

The new age statement releases give a real insight into Cognac, and it’s particularly interesting that Courvoisier should take this route, as the previous designations were very vague indeed. In fact, if you were to ask the average spirits drinker what the difference between a More...

Well, as far as the world of whisky goes, it doesn’t come much bigger than a new release from Ardbeg. We don’t mind telling you that we’ve been absolutely fit to burst on this one for the last few days…

Whilst we were on Islay, we were offered a sneak preview of the New Ardbeg Committee bottling by distillery manager Mickey Heads on the strict understanding that we didn’t go shooting our mouths off until the bottling was out. Well, the day has finally arrived – we can talk about it. More...

We drove over to Kilchoman early in the morning, knowing the Feis Ile bottling would be in high demand. We were right too, as the queue of excited whisky lovers took up the entirety of the visitor shop and all of one of the distillery buildings. It was obvious by the sheer volume of people that Kilchoman is in very high demand and we ended up queuing for almost 2 hours to pick up our bottles, it was all worth it in the end though…

After a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, black pudding, white pudding and potato scones, we left the cottage for Bowmore. There were only 100 bottles of Bowmore’s official 2011 Feis Ile bottling, so we didn’t worry about turning up too early; there was literally no hope of picking one up. In fact, the die-hards had been camped out since the wee hours for a prized bottle. It begs the question why they didn’t simply make more. Oh well. More...

By this morning, the weather had lifted, and whilst power had not yet returned to our quaint little cottage, we felt like our fortunes were changing for the better. With no means of cooking breakfast (or for Darren to make use of his ridiculously loud juicer), we headed out at around half eleven, and made our way to Ardbeg’s café for stomach-lining sustenance (which came in the form of a delicious crab chowder, followed by venison steaks). All in all it was good and hearty and just what we needed. If you’re ever on Islay, Ardbeg’s eatery is well worth a visit. More...