I know what you’re thinking: The shock! The horror!

Scratch that. You’re thinking: I know. Boring. Old news. Who gives a doodle?

Full disclosure: until 3 March, 2010, I was a whisky hater. Full on. In my youth, I partook of the occasional whisky sour, but that was in an attempt to sound sophisticated to a bartender who could not care less about my ingénue posturing. Mostly, I just couldn’t stand the stuff. More...

The weather may have thwarted the brave Walking with the Wounded team’s attempt on the summit of Everest, but their journey is still an inspiring story.

And tonight, they will commiserate by staging the world’s highest ever whisky tasting, streamed live on Glenfiddich's website at 7pm tonight. Technology eh? 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...

Well - last week was quite a week. Further to staying up unfeasibly late on Tuesday drinking Hot chocolate and Lemonade into the wee hours with the lovely folk at Glenfarclas and Pol Roger, I was invited to judge the World Whiskies Awards on the Wednesday evening (an amazing showing all round, the results of which can be found here). .

Following that, I was up bright and early (ish) to present at the World Whiskies Conference on Thursday afternoon (I didn’t say any rude words during the course of my speech. I am proud of this).

After the world whiskies conference was the World Whiskies Awards, whereupon myself and another couple of directors were left at a table, unsupervised by any kind of grown-ups, in the presence of a bottle of Kavalan Solist, and a Batch 30 bottle of Aberlour a’Bunadh. 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...

Japanese distillers made a fine showing last night at Whisky Magazine’s 6th annual World Whisky Awards.

Yamazaki scooped the coveted Best Single Malt Whisky award for its 25 Year Old expression, while Nikka won the Best Blended Whisky category with its Taketsuru 17 Year Old.

This marks the second year in a row Yamazaki’s has triumphed, with their sublime 1984 vintage taking home the best single malt prize in 2011.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...

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...

Note how careful I was with the punctuation there. It’s not that our online editor is wanted, but rather that we want an online editor.

If Mike - our current online editor- was wanted, it might at least go some way towards explaining his decision to move from the sunny, safe, really rather delightful climes of Royal Tunbridge Wells, to Perth. Nope, not that Perth (the sensible Perth, the Perth that’s within just a few miles of a load of great distilleries), the other Perth. The one in Australia. More...