Cask finishing is rather trendy these days, and it’s becoming a case of the more exotic and unusual the better. Murray McDavid took this to a whole new level with their Renegade Rum range. You see, it’s independently bottled rum with a difference; all of the casks are taken to Islay for maturation at the Bruichladdich distillery, and (this has got ‘laddie’s prints all over it) the rums are “enhanced” in some pretty extraordinary wine casks. They also earn the packaging prize for their handsomely sand-blasted bottles, replete with metal dog tags! More...

The headlines have become rather depressing these days, filled with unscrupulous rogue traders and Brits abroad attempting to stem catastrophic oil spills with sporting goods and general bric-a-brac grade detritus. It’s all a tad bleak, so it’s a good thing you can always count on us to brighten your day with some whisky-related jollity. 

That’s right, more drams! 

Today we are excited to announce we now sell whisky samples from Compass Box and Ian Macleod (including a phenomenal selection from the Glengoyne distillery).More...

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...

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...

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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Yet more amazing samples of Japanese Whisky have turned up with us from the lovely folks at No 1 Drinks Company, so to whet your appetite – we’ve done a few tasting notes…

Both Whiskies are from the closed Distillery, Hanyu, Located in southern Japan. Both will be available in late spring… Subscribe to our twitter feed, and we’ll let you know exactly when they come in…

Hanyu Cask# 9305 Number One Drinks Company 53.4%

Bottled by Number One Drinks Company

1990-2009

Nose: Very full and fruity, peaches, calvados, hint of bourbon too, that tangy fruity top note you get in bourbon.

Palate: Fruity, Sweet and sour, quite meaty, some mushrooms, tangy,

Finish: Becomes Drying, refreshers sweets.

Overall: Very good – meaty, but not over the top.

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It’s a very dreary Friday afternoon here at MoM towers. We’ve gone from a horrid frost at the beginning of the week to a grim, drizzly day today, and we’re in desperate need of a little cheering up! Luckily we have just the thing! A consignment of the new – well ok, not that new – Yamazaki Sherry Cask - a beautifully dark whisky limited to 16,000 bottles worldwide.

Sherry Cask was launched in late 2009, and although there have been sherry matured whiskies from Yamazaki before, this has a higher outturn and is slightly more youthful – it being made of whiskies of around 12 to 15 years of age. 

Yamazaki was Japan’s first whisky distillery, and the first cask ever to be filled was a sherry cask. To this day, Spanish oak is specially selected from northern Spain, before the local coopers turn them into giant, 500 litre butts. They are then taken to Jerez in southern Spain for a three year seasoning with rich Oloroso sherry.

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Welcome back everyone! We hope you’ve had a great Christmas, and wish you all a very enjoyable 2010!

Over the festive season we’ve sampled a number of delicious whiskies - Christmas really is a great time for a good dram with some good company - and we wanted to mention one of favourite winter warmers.

At the time of writing, we’re surrounded by several inches of snow, and the thought of a little winter sun is rather appealing… Well, we present to you Glengoyne Glenguin 16 Year Old Shiraz Finish. A Highland single malt finished in Australian Shiraz casks for a touch of Antipodean joie de vivre!

The Shiraz casks come from the Glenguin wine estate in Australia’s Hunter Valley and it’s no accident that Glenguin and Glengoyne sound alike. It all began with Arthur William Tedder, born in Glenguin, Scotland to a Customs and Excise man at the Glengoyne distillery. Arthur was a pilot in the RAF during the First Wold War, as well as holding high command during the Second. After an eminent war career, Tedder was offered a peerage and became the 1st Baron Tedder of Glenguin. Arthur’s grandson, Robin Tedder, is one of Australia’s fifteen Masters of Wine and he also founded the Glenguin Wine Estate in 1988, which brings us back to the whisky…

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There is an absolutely huge kerfuffle going on in the mainstream press at the moment about the hot new release of the first English whisky in over 100 years from St George’s distillery in Norfolk…

We visited the distillery in September and met with Managing Director Andrew Nelstrop. We’ve got a few juicy exclusives, photos and insights to share with you lucky, lucky people.

The Distillery and visitors centre. The still room is behind the large window facing the front on the first floor.

We’ll start by saying first and foremost that we absolutely adored the spirits we tasted – the complexity and depth of flavour found in the samples we tried with Andrew were stunning, and the dedication to excellence displayed at every step of the distillation and maturation processes were truly a delight to see.  These guys are doing it properly.

The distillery is located in a picturesque village just outside Norwich, and on pulling up to the entrance, we thought we were looking at a rather nice country home rather than a working distillery.  It would doubtless have been incredibly easy (not to mention cheap) More...