Whisky opinions, articles, feature pieces, info and reviews.
[Updated 2024] With Islay’s smoky, pungent, peaty whiskies gaining increasing popularity and traction around the globe, and with whisky tourism to Islay growing, now is a great time to come to terms with the island and its whiskies. Here’s a unique and new way of presenting Islay’s critical information….
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It wasn’t that long ago that Johnnie Walker had a fairly simple portfolio: Red Label, Black Label, Green Label, and Blue Label. Today, each of those labels have their own individual portfolios! The Blue Label range is no exception, and it was recently expanded this month with the release of the new Ghost & Rare expression tagged as “Port Ellen”.
The Ghost & Rare range, launched last year with what we’ll now call the “Brora” release, is a range of blended whiskies that showcase the closed, silent and lost distilleries in parent company Diageo’s stocks. Hence the term ghost, referring to distilleries that are no more. As the names would suggest, last year’s release had the cult whisky Brora in the mix, and this year’s release features the biggie of them all: Port Ellen.
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If you’ve been somewhat overwhelmed by all the new whisky distilleries to appear in recent years, you’re not alone! The Scottish whisky distillery construction business is in a true boom cycle at present, with the building pursuit effectively splitting itself into four vastly different endeavours.
The first is the raft of new, relatively small distilleries being built. Of course, this got its start a little over 10 years ago or so with the likes of Daftmill and Abhainn Dearg, but has exploded more recently with the likes of Kingsbarns, Ballindalloch, Ardnamurchan, Wolfburn, Glasgow…and well, the list goes on, right down to the tiny operations of, say, Strathearn and Dornoch. If you haven’t kept up, it’s almost alarming to discover that over 30 new distilleries have recently started up or are currently under construction from the Lowlands to the Islands and everywhere in between.
Continue reading “The Scotch whisky distillery building boom”
Our annual take on the range each year, this is our piece on the Diageo Special Releases 2017 whiskies…
Does the Diageo Special Releases 2016 range need an introduction? For anyone who’s entered the single malt whisky scene in recent years, the choice and array of bottlings, brands and releases can be overwhelming. Almost 30 years ago now, the situation was very different when Diageo launched “The Classic Malts” – first into travel retail in 1988, and then into the domestic market in 1989. Those six whiskies (Glenkinchie, Cragganmore, Oban, Dalwhinnie, Talisker, and Lagavulin) became the vehicle through which hundreds of thousands of people were introduced to malt whisky. For close to a decade they were almost the definitive collection and – notwithstanding the omnipresence of the likes of Glenfiddich and Glenlivet – it was only by the late 1990’s that other brands and recognisable labels started to consistently appear in regular retail outlets.
[Update 2024: The article below was originally written in 2015. Of course, the *new* Port Ellen distillery opened its doors in March 2024, but this changes the narrative only a little. Much of what follows remains valid, given it will be many years until the new spirit has matured, and there will always be lust for the “old” Port Ellen.] What makes Port Ellen whisky so special? Why is the Port Ellen distillery so revered, considering it was decided to close it down in 1983? Let’s look at the fully story, including why Port Ellen whisky makes plenty of people envious…
It’s the question every Islay whisky fan asks themselves at some point in their whisky journey: Laphroaig or Lagavulin – which one is better? Is there a definitive answer? Yes, there’s some juicy stuff we can explore over the next minute or two…
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