That Boutique-y Whisky Company's first four releases

Those of you who inhabit the twittersphere may have noticed that we’ve copped a bit of flak recently from the hardcore whisky community out there. The reason? Well – we keep releasing products (steady yourself dear reader) other than whisky.

Gin, Absinthe, Summer Fruit Cups and the like are all well and good, but, well, they’re not whisky. So – in a twin-pronged attack designed to 1) make my life easier whenever I meet ‘whisky people’, and 2) do something almost unspeakably cool – we’re launching a whole brand-spanking new independent bottling label.

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This is (at this stage) just a rumour.

But there are rumours, and there are rumours. I’d be inclined to say that I’m probably over 90% that this is happening.

I’ve now heard sufficient rumblings about it to make me comfortable in simply repeating what I can already find online (including a rather marvellous entry from the state of Florida that’s clearly more focused on freedom of information than Ardbeg’s Brand agency).

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We've lost Gareth. Poor chap had to leave on a jet plane early this morning and miss this day of wonderful days…drumroll please…

Ardbeg Day! Yes, my malty children, it was the day of Ardbeg, and after a long and luxurious lie in, we were fed a lovely fry up by Mr Ben and then lickety-split, back in the Malt Mobile to rush across the island and not miss all the festivities.

For on this day, Ardbeg held their very own Islay-lympics complete with discus throwing and sheep tossing. We began the day with a nip of the Feis Ile special bottling from Ardbeg, the aptly named: Arbeg Day (Release the Peat!).

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Wellity, wellity, wellity…as you may have read yesterday, our day began with the Balvenie Boys driving the Malt Mobile away from the Master of Malt cottage at 6.30am with minimal protest from me. It shall surely end with a dip in the hot tub.

Our day officially began at around 10am, with Ben rousing us by shouting, ‘wake up!’ all throughout the house. I did not find this pleasing. Justin had spent the early morning hours hoovering some foxy midges that had managed to creep their way into his bedroom, but didn’t seem to worse for the wear. 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...

It’s official – Maltstock is Awesome.

I mean, last year’s event was really, really good, but this year it kicked up a gear in every conceivable way. Having sung the praises of the event to Neil from Caskstrength, we decided to go to the event together, and resolved to deliver a masterclass on some of our favourite whiskies from closed distilleries.

Having set off for the drive from Tunbridge Wells to Dover in ‘plenty of time’, we managed to miss the ferry like a complete pair of rejects (well, one reject, and an immaculately dressed man in Crepe Soled Shoes at any rate). Having secured passage on the next available ferry, we settled in at Dover for the wait. After what seemed like an eternity, our Ferry arrived, and we boarded. After ascertaining that there was nothing of interest in the Duty Free Shop, we repaired to shoot Zombies (we couldn’t find a ‘boy in care’ to help us out, and were consequently killed reasonably soon). More...

Father’s Day 2011 (Sunday 19th June) is encroaching, and as a whisky retailer we feel dutifully obliged to recommend that you buy your papa a gift he will actually enjoy, and not another pair of socks. In a bid to save father/child relationships the country over, we’ve compiled a list of the socks you were going to get him, and the whisky-related merchandise you should really get him instead. 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...

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...

It’s been a decade since the inception of the Ardbeg Committee (officially founded on the 1st January 2000). It’s also been ten years since the release of Ardbeg 10 Year Old, so 2010’s a pretty momentous year for the distillery - we’re sure you’ll agree.

True to form, Ardbeg have been putting on some fantastic celebrations to mark their reaching double figures. We were lucky enough to be invited to one such shindig at The Worx last Wednesday, and we wanted to recount what turned out to be a cracking evening... More...