We made a pact… To boldly offer samples of what no online retailer has ever offered samples of before. We started with some old favourites, and had some pretty exciting stuff on offer (including some show-stopping Glenfarclas Family Casks), but we never had anything quite like this…

We’re proud to announce a fantastic foray into the world of ultra premium spirits. Now you can try 3cl samples of mindboggling whisky that, until now, very few people have had the great privilege to try.More...

12 New Samples!

Just a quick post to let you know which samples we’ll be adding to the site today. We’ve been adding loads and loads and the range is starting to get pretty big! Click here to see all the drams.

Today we’ve got a very interesting selection for you; in fact we’ve only just got most of these in a week ago!

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The Next Batch of Whisky Samples

The sun is shining, the sky is blue and the birds are just about to start getting on our nerves. But times are good, and after launching Drinks by the Dram – our whisky sample service – the Master of Malt offices have become organized chaos.

The samples are flying off the shelves and we’ve been flooded with emails and phone calls from you all, telling us how much you like them.

We’ve made a solemn pledge to keep adding loads and loads of new samples to the site every day, so this morning we gathered around the board table (sat in a huddle on the lawn) and came up with the day’s batch of whiskies to “dram” (turn into samples). More...

Alchemy is one of Science’s earliest precursors; it is the tool the ancients used in the search of the three most desirable treasures known to mankind: gold, eternal life, and infinite knowledge.

The early Arab chemists - more conjurers and cooks than scientists - were obsessed with Alchemy’s elusive rewards, but they remained unattainable. They did, however, make one great discovery: alcohol – without which there’d be no whisky!More...

Signatory came up with an excellent game plan: find the best single cask whiskies in Scotland, and package them beautifully. Unsurprisingly, they’ve been very successful.

The range is staggeringly large, with an enormous breadth of whiskies from all sorts of Scotch distilleries; some silent, many still up and running, some grain whiskies and some from the most legendary distilleries in the world!

There are several different Signatory lines, but the jewel in the crown is the Cask Strength Collection. The range consists of natural cask strength whiskies, almost all of which are from single casks. Every time we’ve tried anything from the range we’ve been consistently delighted, so imagine our joy when a set of 5 samples arrived through the letter box!More...

We’re proud to announce that we now stock whiskies from Adelphi. Over the years we’ve had the good fortune to sample quite a few Adelphi bottlings, and we’ve been very impressed, so we were thrilled when the new bottles arrived.

The Adelphi Distillery is actually one of the lost distilleries of Scotland, which operated from 1826 to around 1907. In 1880, the distillery was acquired by Messrs A. Walker and Co and it was Walker’s great-grandson, Jamie Walker, who restored the Adelphi name in 1993, but this time not as a distillery, as an independent bottler.More...

The third batch of Diageo’s Managers’ Choice whiskies is looming (which you can preorder from us now), following the first two batches in September 2009 and January 2010 (with the fourth and final batch set for May of this year). Ultimately the complete selection will feature a single cask bottling from every one of the 27 working distilleries owned by Diageo, which is a noteworthy feat, and quite a talking point amongst whisky drinkers. More...

Further to our prophetic post last week about Old Whisky, the release has been announced earlier today of the new Mortlach 70 Year Old - the oldest bottled Single Malt Whisky in the world. At a full 70 years old, this is one in the eye for Dalmore, whose recent super-high-end releases have never quite hit this magical age marker.

Bottled by Gordon and Macphail, an award-winning malt whisky specialist from Elgin – this super-luxury whisky has been produced and bottled in exceptionally small quantity from a Spanish Ex-Bodega Sherry Hogshead which was laid down in 1938. Click here to read more...

The presentation of whiskies of this age and calibre is paramount, and this release certainly does not disappoint. Presented in a crystal and Sterling Silver decanter, all housed in a hand-made box made from Brazilian Rosewood.

Whilst we’ve not (yet) tasted this world first of a dram, we can include below tasting notes from Charles Maclean..

Available now, and an absolute snip at only £9999!

Mortlach 70 Year Old

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Old whiskies have always commanded respect from the drinking public. It is widely thought that the older the whisky, the better. Distilleries have always pushed for this, because they can demand higher prices, and the increased rarity of old whisky has helped cement their éclat. At Master of Malt, we think whiskies have a life span; some require a lot of ageing to reach their peak, and others need only a few years. There are some very young whiskies which have reached their full potential very early in life; Ardbeg 10 is an awe-inspiring single malt and we’ve only got good things to say about the 3 year old English Whisky Chapter 6!

It is undeniable, however, that there is something very special about extensively aged malt. We’ve been lucky enough to taste some great 40 year old whisky recently. 

A single cask 40 year old Glenfarclas had this impression on us:

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All you avid whisky enthusiasts will know of our little (not so little) prize giveaway of last month. We’ve reached our 25th anniversary and we’re full of collective beans so we picked a 40 year old Glenfarclas off the shelf (worth £1,500!) and offered up 250 chances to win it – all entrants had to do was buy any full-size Glenfarclas from the site…

Now, the purpose of this post is twofold. Firstly, we wanted, very much, to revel in our own beneficence, as we join the list of history’s greatest philanthropists (Paul Newman, Bono, Matt Damon…) that’s right…

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