Master of Malt Whisky Blog

Feis Ile – The Islay Whisky Festival 2011 – Part Seven

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Ardbeg Sign

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…

Categories : News, Whisky
Tags : Ardbeg, Elijah Craig, Feis Ile, Islay Whisky, Laphroaig, Single Malt Whisky, Uigeadail
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Courvoisier Cognac with an Age Statement

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Courvoisier

For the first time ever, one of France’s big Cognac houses has started putting age statements on its products. Courvoisier have begun labelling Cognacs just like we do in the whisky industry, where the number reflects the age of the youngest spirit in the bottle.

The new age statement releases give a real insight into Cognac, and it’s particularly interesting that Courvoisier should take this route, as the previous designations were very vague indeed. In fact, if you were to ask the average spirits drinker what the difference between a More…

Categories : Cognac, News
Tags : Age Statements
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Ardbeg Alligator

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Ardbeg Alligator

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…

Categories : News, Scotch Whisky, Whisky
Tags : Ardbeg, Feis Ile, Glenmorangie
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Feis Ile – The Islay Whisky Festival 2011 – Part Six

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Friday was Bunnahabhain’s distillery day…

As far as Islay distilleries go, Bunnahabhain is perhaps the least talked about among the Scotch cognoscenti, and whilst this is entirely unfair (due to the quality of the spirit), it is unsurprising in many ways. For a start the whisky isn’t particularly peaty, nor is not subject to any wild experimentation during production or maturation, and overall, well, it’s decidedly gentle. More…

Categories : Scotch Whisky, Whisky
Tags : Blended Whisky, Bunnahabhain, Dailuaine, Feis Ile, Islay Whisky, Lagavulin, Laphroaig, Single Malt Whisky, White Horse
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A brief Islay interlude – the new world’s most expensive whisky

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Crikey, a lot happens whilst you’re away for a few days doesn’t it? Turn your back, and all of a sudden the recent uber-releases from Dalmore, Macallan, and Aisla T’Orten ain’t no thang – it’s all about the Isabella’s Islay… Released a week or so ago, this extraordinary piece of work is being billed as the world’s most expensive whisky, at $6,200,000: More…

Categories : Whisky
Tags : Macallan, Old and Rare Whisky, Single Malt Whisky
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Feis Ile – The Islay Whisky Festival 2011 – Part Five

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We drove over to Kilchoman early in the morning, knowing the Feis Ile bottling would be in high demand. We were right too, as the queue of excited whisky lovers took up the entirety of the visitor shop and all of one of the distillery buildings. It was obvious by the sheer volume of people that Kilchoman is in very high demand and we ended up queuing for almost 2 hours to pick up our bottles, it was all worth it in the end though…

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Categories : News, Whisky
Tags : Bowmore, Feis Ile, Islay Whisky, Kilchoman, Port Ellen
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Feis Ile – The Islay Whisky Festival 2011 – Part Four

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After a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, black pudding, white pudding and potato scones, we left the cottage for Bowmore. There were only 100 bottles of Bowmore’s official 2011 Feis Ile bottling, so we didn’t worry about turning up too early; there was literally no hope of picking one up. In fact, the die-hards had been camped out since the wee hours for a prized bottle. It begs the question why they didn’t simply make more. Oh well. More…

Categories : News, Whisky
Tags : 30 year old, Bowmore, Caol Ila, Feis Ile, Islay Whisky, Laphroaig
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Feis Ile – The Islay Whisky Festival 2011 – Part Three

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By this morning, the weather had lifted, and whilst power had not yet returned to our quaint little cottage, we felt like our fortunes were changing for the better. With no means of cooking breakfast (or for Darren to make use of his ridiculously loud juicer), we headed out at around half eleven, and made our way to Ardbeg’s café for stomach-lining sustenance (which came in the form of a delicious crab chowder, followed by venison steaks). All in all it was good and hearty and just what we needed. If you’re ever on Islay, Ardbeg’s eatery is well worth a visit. More…

Categories : News, Whisky
Tags : Feis Ile, Islay Whisky, Laphroaig
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Feis Ile – The Islay Whisky Festival 2011 – Part Two

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Well, as we write this post we’re basking in the warm glow of the candelabra, and the unforgiving light of a laptop screen, which is down to its last 20% of battery life. That’s right, there’s been a powercut. Just like the story of the optimist and the pessimist… The pessimist says: “this is terrible, it can’t possibly get any worse!” the optimist says: “oh yes it can…”

Right now it’s cold, dark, damp and miserable outside, but we’re soldiering on.

Today began promisingly, with Caol Ila’s open day, though the weather was not on our side. We parked on a grassy hill in force 10 gales, and were gracefully ushered to the distillery bus by what felt like a hurricane. We then drove down to the Caol Ila distillery, the most remote on the island.

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Categories : News, Whisky
Tags : Caol Ila, Feis Ile, Gordon and Macphail, Islay Whisky, Pusser's
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Feis Ile – The Islay Whisky Festival 2011 – Part One

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“Nothing can survive in these conditions, it’s inhuman.”

Our trip to Islay had gotten off to a simply dreadful start. Having driven for many, many hours from home, we thought we’d planned for every eventuality. We had stocked the car with at least twenty bottles of booze, a fine selection of meats, and a small travel humidor. Of course we all had our gentlemanly evening wines, stowed in our suitcases, as well as a modest selection of liqueurs, cocktails and Ron de Jeremy. We felt confident we would be making the most of what was, essentially, a week off. More…

Categories : News, Whisky
Tags : Bruichladdich, Feis Ile, Islay Whisky, Lagavulin, Port Askaig, Port Ellen
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