Well, he’s been at it again.

We try to rein him in from time to time, but the man just won’t listen. After his last couple of excursions into the world of gin  - a Sloe Gin made with half a pound of sloes per bottle, and an Old Tom which I’m reasonably sure he made just because he likes drinking Martinezzes (Martinez? Martinezs? Martiniz?), he’s been at it again with this, a cask-aged offering made using the superb Bathtub Gin as the base.

The Professor has acquired a stock of Octave casks (only 50 litres capacity as opposed to the more usual 250 litre hogshead) which have been previously used to store whisky (and prior to that, either Sherry, or Bourbon) for his newest creation. This means that in comparison to other cask-aged gins, there is a significantly higher surface area to volume ratio (roughly double as I’m sure you’ve all worked out by now). This, in turn, means that the gin will interact with the cask faster, making the 6-months-ish that the gin spends in cask lends a fantastic amount of flavour to the gin. 

The casks used to store and mature the Gin are used a maximum of twice, before being retired and used as garden furniture / plant pots / props in a massive game of real-life Donkey Kong I’m planning for the warehouse staff in a couple of weeks. Not the last one. Definitely not that. 

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In proper Indiana Jones-style, the lads at Grant’s have uncovered an ancient text (not the Book of the Dead) explaining exactly what William Grant had at his disposal in 1912 to create Stand Fast. Not to be outdone, they have taken it upon themselves to recreate Stand Fast—as much to a T as possible—exactly one hundred years later, to the day.

Blending has been a treasured and almost mystical art form for centuries, with master blenders handing down recipes verbally to apprentices like secretive sorcerers imparting wisdom to only their most promising pupils. With only six master blenders in its 135-year history, Grant’s hasn’t had too many sorcerers sharing information. So, the discovery of a whisky book is a magical one, indeed.

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The handsome devils at The Handmade Cocktail company have mixed a very tasty martinez, the latest addition to a range of superbly convenient cocktails.

The origins of the martinez are mysterious. More mysterious than people who profess to enjoy Coldplay; more mysterious than the location of Mike’s passport; more mysterious even than the fact Greg Wallace keeps getting presenting jobs.

Stories as to the provenance of the martinez abound; some say it was created by legendary bartender “Professor” Jerry Thomas at The Old Occidental Hotel in San Francisco to satiate a thirsty miner on his way to the town of Martinez. More...

¡Atención, por favor!;  something amazing has just happened in the wonderful world of tequila, something so momentous you are simply going to have to cancel that vitally important life-saving heart surgery and give this announcement your full, undivided concentration.

Leading tequila producer Ocho has devised a new way of producing Mexico’s favourite way of getting tourists to star in humiliating photographs featuring giant sombreros. It’s called Ocho Curado and Master of Malt has got the first bottles to hit the UK, and as yet we’re the sole retailer to hold any.  More...

Thursday/Thorsday last week was the day the Runes foretold, their arrival marked by the noise of the door buzzer as the DHL man arrived – just like the days of yore. They spoke of the coming of something that would require valour, and bravery (check and check), though sadly due to "the way of things", the Runes didn't arrive daily as a lead up to Thorsday. One arrived on Tuesday, the rest, on Wednesday. It was still quite dramatic though (let's just say it didn't Rune the surprise), even if they did come in either a fake felt pouch or a mauve mesh-bag-thing that a small girl would keep her jewellery in.More...

This competition has now closed. Click here to find out the winner!
 

I spent most of the last week interviewing for our Online Editor’s job (more on that soon folks). A reasonable part of the interview process is the effective management of people’s expectations with regard to the ‘glamour’ of the job. In fact, I’d even got a bit of patter I could do on autopilot memorised. It went “You know – for every fantastic, 60 year old whisky that you’ll get to taste, there are another 100 less exciting ones, and probably 50 vodkas too”.

The events of this morning have somewhat stepped on my point, as on arriving at the office I was greeted by a little package containing a sample of the most recent über-premium bottling from Gordon and Macphail – the somewhat tongue-twistingly named Glen Grant 60 Years old Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee (1952-2012).

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This morning I mentioned to Ben it was high time we posted something on the blog for this week, his suggestion:

“Something about whisky. We don’t do enough of that.”

To be fair, he has a point. We’ve been so caught up in the recent excitement of Christmas, making and launching new stuff, and my imminent emigration, that we’ve neglected that one little thing we’re here to write about first: Whisky!

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Last Tuesday evening, I was invited to the salubrious surroundings of the Four Seasons hotel on Park Lane, to sample the re-invention of a classic Dalmore Dram. This whisky provoked more controversy through its ousting and subsequent reinvention a couple of years ago than perhaps any other spirit, save perhaps that which we do not mention:

I’m talking of course, about The Dalmore Cigar Malt.

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So, it would seem that the hype surrounding the release of Aldi’s 24 year old and 40 year old ‘single malts’ has now died down (with one notable bombshell yet to come courtesy of our chums at caskstrength.net. Keep an eye on their site. We won’t spoil the surprise), and the whisky world has returned to its former calm self. Well, I say calm… As calm as it can be whilst sending out enough Christmas booze per day to fill a small swimming pool.

There are tales aplenty in the feedback to our first blog post about the queuing, jostling, and general shenanigans surrounding the release, but we, being the ever inquisitive souls that we are, wanted to revisit the whiskies away from the initial tasting, and see just what we made of them in the cold light of day.

I’m going to relay to you two phrases that I’ve uttered over the last few weeks which have genuinely made me chuckle maniacally to myself for about 5 minutes.

The first is unrelated to this post, but I think very pleasing anyway – “Look – all I need is for someone to find me a consignment of Fresh Sloes - how bloody difficult can that be” (incidentally, if anyone knows where I can get hold of a consignment of Fresh Sloes, there’s a bottle of something nice in it for you).

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