Every year on the 5th of November here in the UK we set off fireworks and burn an effigy of a man who tried to overthrow a king who enforced religious oppression against Catholics living in England. To an outsider, Guy Fawkes night looks like an insane, cult-like pagan ritual, but really it’s just about merriment, the partaking of yummy winter cocktails, and watching fireworks in awe and wonderment with their loud noises and pretty colours (we’re easily amused).

For the unofficial Master of Malt 2011 Firework More...

“Hey! Wait just one second. People are incorrectly spelling November and are growing things on their faces that suggest they shouldn’t be within a 500 metre radius of a school. What the devil is going on?”

Maybe that reaction was entirely made up, but it does give me an excuse to fully explain Movember to all who will lend an ear, and so here goes…

At Master of Malt, we’ve been loyal Movember supporters for ages, but for the past few years we’ve actively participated by launching our own, incredibly special, More...

I’ve long held up Bushmills 10yo as one of my all-time favourite Irish Whiskeys, predominantly because it has such an incredibly clear and obvious flavour component within it, that of Nectarine.

In fact, I can be more specific than that. It’s the taste of the little pieces of Nectarine that are present in yoghurt. I can go further than that, too if you like – it was the standard range of Safeways (before they got eaten by Morrisons) yoghurts available in the late 1980s. Only available as a 4-pack with Strawberry, Peach Melba, and Vanilla I believe (seriously - who eats vanilla yoghurt?). More...

New product announcements! Hurrah!

Yes, today we are announcing a terrific addition to the Handmade Cocktail Company’s sterling range of ready-made bottled cocktails. Many of you cocktail enthusiasts have already been asking us for one particular cocktail - a classic that was left out of the original range. It’s the ultimate zesty, spicy bourbon cocktail, and the favourite tipple of none other than Don Draper, Harry S Truman and Cole Porter. That’s right… The Old Fashioned. More...

We gave a few whisky bloggers a simple brief: come up with a great cocktail using our 8 year old blended whisky. We’ve had some great responses, and today’s cocktail is no exception! This recipe was sent to us by Gal Granov who writes the brilliant blog “Whisky Israel”, which is a great source of tasting notes and whisky reviews (despite being written in a country with an incredibly high tax on spirits!). So without further ado… More...

It’s a trend we’ve seen emerging for many years, that of bartenders mixing their own versions of the Manhattan, Rob Roy, and other Classic cocktails, then bottling them and simply leaving them alone to mature (sometimes for many years) before stirring and serving.

We’ve sampled absolutely superb examples at (in our opinion) a couple of the best bars in the world; 69 Colebrook Row and Purl, and are seeing the trend spread out into more and more cocktail bars throughout the UK.

Whilst Bottle-aged cocktails are appearing in tremendously forward thinking bars these days, they are also a revival of techniques used by infamous pre-prohibition bartenders such as Thomas Handy in the early 1900s. Handy, famous for the invention of the Sazerac Cocktail is recorded to have pre-bottled his potent mixture of liquor to serve to patrons in the renowned Merchants Exchange Coffee House, New Orleans. More...

We asked a few well-known spirits/drinks writers to come up with delicious wintry cocktails using our 8 year old blended whisky, and our new cask-aged whisky bitters.

This week we’ve teamed up with Joshua Hatton to bring you the next thrilling instalment in our guest cocktail blog series. Joshua not only writes a superb blog, he is also President and Founder of the Jewish Single Malt Whisky Society based over in the good ol’ US of A. We posted Joshua a bottle of our very own 8 year old blended whisky and a bottle of our brand new and very fine cask-aged whisky bitters. More...

We asked a few well-known spirits/drinks writers to come up with delicious wintry cocktails using our 8 year old blended whisky, and our new cask-aged whisky bitters.

After a great start from Neil Ridley (who used a combination of fire and alchemy to create The Spiced Apple blazer – click here to read), our second cocktail is from Billy Abbott – an all-round spirits/beer buff who writes the wonderfully well-researched Billy’s Booze Blog. More...

Whilst Christmas may be long over, we’re still in the midst of winter here at MoM HQ, and in desperate need of a little warmth! We’ve hooked up with several cocktail/drinks experts to come up with the ultimate winter cocktails using our 8 Year Old Blend and our new cask-aged Whisky Bitters.

To kick-start this little mini-series we’re featuring a delightful concoction, created by Neil Ridley – whisky writer off of that CaskStrength.net, spirits and music buff, and all round dapper chap. 

[<--- Here's Neil in action] More...

Okay, so once in a while at MoM towers, we like to make a brief foray into the wonderful (if dangerous) world of Mixology.

Over the next few months we’ll be publishing some reasonably detailed recipes of our favourite whisky cocktails for you to make at home – and this week’s instalment is the famous Blood and Sand.

This absolute belter of a cocktail is best made with fresh orange juice, but (and this is really important) you’ll need to find More...