If you haven’t yet discovered Compass Box whisky it’s high time you did because the company produces some of the best Scotch blends on the market today.

And this month, the raptor-retinaed among you will have noticed we are running a really rather brilliant competition, and all you have to do is buy a bottle of Compass Box to enter!

The prize is superb – a bottle of the original, illegal Spice Tree, plus two very different whiskies from the company’s intriguing Canto Cask Range; Canto Cask 48 and Canto Cask 20 to be exact. 

And even if you don’t win, every bottle of Compass Box you buy will be accompanied by a free dram of another Compass Box whisky. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just off to buy a bottle of Flaming Heart and… what’s that? I’m not allowed to enter? 

Ok, unfair as that seems (there are only 250 chances after all) instead I’ll tell you a bit about Compass Box.

The company launched in 2000, the vision of American blender John Glaser, ex-marketing director at Johnnie Walker. 

John started his career in the wine trade where blended products are celebrated as much as their single varietal cousins. With whisky however it was, and to an extent still is, single malts that get all the glory.More...

We had to double check this first to make sure it wasn’t late April Foolishness, but it seems Ardbeg really has boldly gone where no other whisky has gone before.

Yes… they’ve sent Ardbeg to the International Space Station at 25,000 mph, which we believe is just short of Ludicrous Speed. 

Well, to be strictly accurate they’ve sent new make spirit, so it’s Ardbeg, but not as we know it…at least not yet.

Because the point of this extra-planetary excursion is not to make the lives of the crew more bearable by providing them with delicious peaty whisky, but to explore the effects of zero gravity on the mysterious maturation process.

Along with the new make, samples of oak have been blasted into the earth’s orbit where the reactions between the two will be noted and closely compared to control samples back on earth.

A US team will closely monitor the experiment both in Houston, Texas, at the NanoRacks' facility, and also in Warehouse 3 at Ardbeg Distillery. More...

Tullamore Dew is returning to its spiritual home after 58 years with the announcement that William Grant & Sons will be building a new distillery in Tullamore town itself. 

The company, which also owns Glenfiddich and several other brands you’ll be not unfamiliar with, acquired Tullamore Dew in 2010. Second only to Jameson in the popularity stakes, sales of the Dew are growing by 15% annually according to William Grant & Sons, and production from the new distillery is intended to sustain the long-term demands.

Work on the new distillery is scheduled to begin later this year, subject to planning permission, and from the sound of it, it’s intended to be something of a showpiece for Irish whisky. More...

A rather interesting package came in the post yesterday.

Now, we've seen several new expressions from The Famous Grouse in recent years - from the rather deliciously smoky Black Grouse, to the silky smooth grain whisky, the Snow Grouse and more recently the unbelievably popular Naked Grouse, which also won a prestigious world whiskies design award for the really rather beautiful bottle.

This, however, is the first time that another avian has been brought into the flock (sorry). More...

Maths, hepatitis, civil aviation… what do they have in common? Obviously they should all be avoided wherever possible but there is one more thing – all have their own day.

In fact, through detailed research conducted over the course of two entire minutes I've found the list of things that have their own day is longer than the queue at a Greek job centre.

So it was a travesty, nay an outrage, that whisky did not have its own day… until now. Yes, at last whisky has joined the exalted ranks of things that have their own day – left handed people, pirates, children, left handed pirate children… the list goes on. More...

Fans of Bushmills and rough sleeping may want to head over to the brand's Facebook page where you can bag a ticket to an exclusive whiskey-orientated music festival.

Bushmills Live, as the name implies, will be based around watching live music while drinking Bushmills; there are definitely worse ways to spend a June weekend.

Held at the Bushmills distillery in Northern Ireland, bands will perform in the distillery buildings themselves, which is a good thing as being Ireland in June it will almost definitely rain. 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...

It really only struck me as I was trying to explain to a (non-whisky-loving) friend the weekend after this event that I was, to all intents and purposes talking in tongues. “Oh yes – well earlier in the week, I went to a Monkey Shoulder event at Callooh Callay” could just as easily have been “Oh yes – well earlier in the week, I went to a Badger Scapula event at Lorks a Lawdy”. Nonsense. Just nonsense.

Anyway – muggle-confusing industry Jargon aside, I’ve been asked by a few people to jot down the recipes and photos from the evening, as it was by all accounts one of the best whisky cocktail events I’ve ever been to.

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).

More...

The buzz around Highland Park’s latest whisky, Thor, has been sensational. For all intents and purposes it sounds to be a fantastic whisky – a 16 year old, cask-strength Highland Park packaged in a handsome Viking long ship-inspired case. This morning, however, it all became a lot more mysterious…

We received a little box with a bow on top (see below): (nice to have a bow) More...