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Master of Malt Blog

Category: Scotch Whisky

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Modern blended whiskies you’ll want to boast about

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Blended whisky gets a seriously bad rap – call time on single malt snobbery, and stock your home bar with these modern blended whiskies (and blended malts) that equal far…

Blended whisky gets a seriously bad rap – call time on single malt snobbery, and stock your home bar with these modern blended whiskies (and blended malts) that equal far more than the sum of their parts…

In the age of the single malt, you’ll be hard pushed to find anyone who would freely admit that their favourite sipper is of the blended variety. For all intents and purposes, it’s the equivalent of wearing a Status Quo t-shirt to a Sex Pistols gig.

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Scotch Whisky

Annandale Distillery Scotch whisky comes of age!

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The only thing more exciting than a new distillery is a new distillery’s first whisky coming of age! We popped over the border into Scotland to meet the Annandale Distillery…

The only thing more exciting than a new distillery is a new distillery’s first whisky coming of age! We popped over the border into Scotland to meet the Annandale Distillery team on a very special day…

What a difference a century makes. It’s 1918, and the Annandale Distillery, a historical Johnnie Walker production site, has just produced its final drop of spirit. Founded way back in 1836, the distillery is about to fall into disrepair, then dereliction. Located just 10 miles or so from the English border, what once made Annandale a convenient alternative to Island whiskies for blenders has seen it forgotten as other routes opened up. The distillery will soon be picked apart for salvage, its stills shipped off to Speyside. It’s a bleak scene.

Until David Thomson and Teresa Church come along. Fast forward to 2007 and the pair buy the dilapidated distillery, all crumbled stone and sylvan, sinuous weeds. Thomson grew up in nearby Dumfries and, buoyed by a passion for single malts and a background in sensory science, sets about the restoration project alongside Church.

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News Scotch Whisky Whisky

Terrific Tomatin celebrates super-sized whisky growth

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The Tomatin distillery has just released its results for the most recent financial year, showing its turnover climbed by an incredibly impressive 24.6%! It was a good year for Tomatin…

The Tomatin distillery has just released its results for the most recent financial year, showing its turnover climbed by an incredibly impressive 24.6%!

It was a good year for Tomatin in Inverness-shire. Financial results released by the Scotch whisky distillery covering the period between 31 December 2016 to 31 December 2017 show that Tomatin’s turnover grew by 24.6% year-on-year – tantalisingly close to 25%!

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The Nightcap: 15 June

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Potential gin droughts and whiskey made with beavers. It’s all kicking off, isn’t it? The Nightcap is here to fill you in on this week’s booze news. Look at a…

Potential gin droughts and whiskey made with beavers. It’s all kicking off, isn’t it? The Nightcap is here to fill you in on this week’s booze news.

Look at a calendar. Or your phone. Or the bottom right/top right corner of your computer screen (dependent on what operating system you’re using). Notice that today is Friday. Revel in the joy of Friday, for it ushers in a new edition of The Nightcap, with all its booze news goodness. Revel in it. Go on. We’ll wait.

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Competitions Scotch Whisky

The Islay moment competition winner is…

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To mark another superb Fèis Ìle we asked the good public (that’s you!) to share a snap of your top Islay tipple and to flaunt your #MoMFeisIle t-shirt to be…

To mark another superb Fèis Ìle we asked the good public (that’s you!) to share a snap of your top Islay tipple and to flaunt your #MoMFeisIle t-shirt to be in with a chance of enjoying a bottle of our very own Bruichladdich 23 Year Old 1993 – Single Cask – and we’ve got our winner!

After all the spectacular sunshine, delightful drams and roaming data charges we’ve all finally recovered enough from another incredible Fèis Ìle to announce the two lucky whisky-lovers who have won our Islay moment competition!

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News Scotch Whisky Whisky

John Crabbie & Co 2.0: Edinburgh’s son returns to whisky distilling

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Five months after resurrecting the historic John Crabbie & Co. whisky brand with the launch of two single malts, Halewood International revealed plans for an Edinburgh distillery – the old…

Five months after resurrecting the historic John Crabbie & Co. whisky brand with the launch of two single malts, Halewood International revealed plans for an Edinburgh distillery – the old stomping ground of Crabbie himself. Despite his Scotch kudos, surprisingly little is known about this influential character. MoM delves into the past, present and future of Crabbie Whisky…

When Halewood announced plans to invest more than £7 million in a new Crabbie distillery in Leith, industry ears pricked up. Though best known for its green ginger wine and ginger beers, the brand’s roots lie in whisky: it was founded a few short years after Blair Athol and Highland Park. Now, it’s the third contender in a race to build the first new distillery in Edinburgh for almost 100 years.

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Scotch Whisky

The inaugural MoM Fèis Ìle Awards are here!

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There were drams, live bands galore (often the same one), much merriment and more epic dogs than you could even try to count. Yes, folks – Fèis Ìle happened. And…

There were drams, live bands galore (often the same one), much merriment and more epic dogs than you could even try to count. Yes, folks – Fèis Ìle happened. And now, partly as an excuse to relive the best bits, partly to give mega kudos to the star performers, behold: we present the entirely-not-scientific-at-all, totally-subjective-in-every-way MoM Fèis Ìle Awards 2018!

Well. We’ve just about sort-of recovered. Fèis Ìle 2018 was an absolute riot of whisky geekery, drams of much deliciousness, and of course, incredible, incredible people. We had a proper blast on Islay, and we’re still wading through the reams of content, video footage, and social posts from the week at the pinnacle of the whisky calendar.

And as we reminisced all the action, debating heatedly at MoM HQ as to which tip-top tour was the most tremendous and which masterclass was most masterful, it suddenly became clear: The MoM Fèis Ìle Awards should be a thing!

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Scotch Whisky

Q&A: Loch Lomond master blender Michael Henry!

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Michael Henry is a man with many hats. He might be a whisky blender by title, but he works across all aspects of spirit production at the Loch Lomond Scotch…

Michael Henry is a man with many hats. He might be a whisky blender by title, but he works across all aspects of spirit production at the Loch Lomond Scotch whisky distillery. We get our geek on and chat all things yeast, on-site cask rejuvenation, and that genuinely intriguing still set-up…

Loch Lomond prides itself on its flexibility – and it is indeed a chameleon in spirit form. Set up in 1966 to be as self-sufficient as they come, the distillery is perhaps the only one in Scotland able to simultaneously produce its own single malt and single grain. It’s a fascinating one, indeed.

To get under the skin of the distillery, find out how and why it makes the spirit it does, we caught up with master blender, Michael Henry. His background in beer and seeming obsession with yeast has set him in good stead to handle the ambidextrous producer and its multifaceted ways.

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American Whiskey Cocktails Gin News Scotch Whisky Tequila Whisky Wine

The Nightcap: 8 June

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Jack Daniel’s-maker Brown-Forman lines up a new CEO, World Gin Day hype aplenty, and fizz in space? It can only be The Nightcap! It’s Friday and the world’s most eclectic…

Jack Daniel’s-maker Brown-Forman lines up a new CEO, World Gin Day hype aplenty, and fizz in space? It can only be The Nightcap!

It’s Friday and the world’s most eclectic round-up of booze newses is back for another week! We’ve got a whole host of hot-off-the-press product launches, bar happenings galore and incoming CEOs up our sleeves. But first, let’s look back on the week that was…

While we were all recovering from the mega week-and-a-bit of Fèis Ìle 2018, Annie was bar flying-it-up at Artesian as the renowned bar team unveiled a new menu. Then, on Tuesday, she hightailed it over to The Zetter Townhouse to check out its partnership with cocktail maestro Tony Conigliaro… It’s a hard life.

On Wednesday, we had a look at your top 10 gins across Master of Malt to make what we think is a cracking list of must-tries ahead of World Gin Day (it’s tomorrow, team! Perhaps there’s just enough time to sneak in a next-day delivery…). Sticking with a theme, yesterday Adam caught up with Alex Kammerling, who just happens to have released a Kamm & Sons gin! Good timing, right?!

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Scotch Whisky

Fèis Ìle 2018 Day Eight: Ardbeg

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Well, well, well… on the final day of Fèis Ìle 2018 we got swept away in a time warp, landing in late 1960s Ardbeg. And if the sixties were like…

Well, well, well… on the final day of Fèis Ìle 2018 we got swept away in a time warp, landing in late 1960s Ardbeg. And if the sixties were like this, they were indeed swinging…

Welcome to 1960s Ardbeg! We were warned back in March that attending Ardbeg Day 2018 would result in serious time travel, but little could prepare us for the sixties extravaganza that awaited (did you see Mickey Heads’ attire? That medallion). From the second we rolled down the Ardbeg drive (no designated driver today, we’re partying on and picking up the wheels tomorrow!) to when we departed later, drams in hand, we were enveloped in the bright, bustling world of a 1960s village party, complete with flares galore, flowers painted or stuck on every available surface and the hits in abundance from the incredible live band.

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