NOEL ON WHISKY

FUN FACTS ABOUT SCOTCH WHISKY 2019...

There are more than 2250 tidbits listed below. These follow the 55 posted earlier. The next lot, viz. Fun Facts 2306 onward are here.

The world's first blended whisky which was a mix of malt and grain whisky was produced by brewer and small-time distiller Andrew Usher II in Edinburgh under the name Green Stripe, circa 1860. His father, Andrew Usher (1782 – 1855), was also a famous blender in the vatted malt era.

Glenlivet's Edinburgh agent, Andrew Usher, was responsible for creating one of the first ever blended whiskies, Usher's Old Vatted Glenlivet, (OVG).

Subsequent blending and mass distillation enabled whisky to grow from a drink rarely consumed outside the United Kingdom, to one of mass export.

Andrew Usher II, John Crabbie of Crabbie's Green Ginger and William Sanderson, whisky blender of Vat 69 were the three founders of the North British Distillery.

Andrew Usher II and brother John Usher, partners in Andrew Usher & Co, were also the proprietors of the Edinburgh Distillery.

In the 18th century whisky was also a name for a light horse-drawn carriage, probably more for the speed suggested by “whisk” than the drink.

Tabasco sauce is aged three years in previously aged white oak whiskey barrels from companies like Jack Daniel's.

Charles Dickens spelt it whiskey in Martin Chuzzlewit but used both whisky and whiskey in The Pickwick Papers. But then he didn't quite know which city he was in, did he?

Water for Laphroaig is acidic due to quartz mountains and peaty lowlands, but the mineral content in the water is low.

North Korea’s Samilpo distillery created its own brand of whisky and launched it mid-2019. The Samilpo whisky bottle is based on the characteristic square design of Scotland’s Johnnie Walker, a popular but expensive brand in North Korea.

The distillery sells two different expressions of its whisky in a format similar to the international best-selling Scottish brand – a 40% ABV “Black Label” and a 42% ABV “Red Label”. There had to be some difference somewhere, I suppose. Its 45% ABV expression which was announced as part of the family is not yet available. The bottles present an unusual volume, 620 ml. Apart from this figure and the ABV, nothing is written in English.

With 78 out of 82 entities using Whisky, there is a strong case for stating that the global spelling of this spirit is whisky.

At Bunnahabhain on the island of Islay, spring water is piped from the hills without passing over peat. The spring from which it is sourced is rich in calcium and magnesium so the water contains more minerals.

Between 1786 and 1803, a span of 17 years, the duties on stills was increased by a factor of more than 77 times.

Bowmore's water takes a long path to the distillery passing through quartites, limestones, sandstones, and through peat.

Tamdhu uses well water beneath the distillery and is the ONLY Speyside whisky using water from the River Spey.

The first Scotch ever to sell for six figures ($160,100) was the aptly named Dalmore 64 Trinitas, one of just three bottles of this Scotch whisky ever made. Rare stocks are combined in each bottle, containing spirits dating from 1868, 1878, 1926 and 1939.

'Soft water, through peat, over granite' was the traditional and still oft-quoted view of the best water for distilling. Remarkably, less than 20% of Scotland’s distilleries use water that fits this description.

Eimverk Distillery in Iceland is dedicated to making premium Icelandic spirits from 100% local ingredients. Their whisky is named Flóki after one of Icelands first explorers, Hrafna-Flóki (Flóki of the ravens). Eimverk produces three whiskies, one Young Malt, one unique sheep-dung smoked malt whisky and one 3-YO Single Malt Whisky using locally grown Icelandic barley.

Pakistan's only distillery at the Murree Brewery is owned by a Parsi, Minoo Bhandara.

Macallan is still the most traded brand, followed by Ardbeg and Bruichladdich.

Campbeltown-based Springbank produces a whisky distilled 2.5 times.!? The distillery has a direct fire wash still and two spirits stills. It takes the feints (tails) of the first spirit still and combines them with a portion of the low wines obtained during the initial stripping run(the output of the wash still). That mixture is then distilled again right through the second spirit still; for the feints, it’s their third trip through the still. That means a portion of the finished distillate has been distilled three times, while another portion has been distilled twice – 2.5 times distillation!

Mortlach takes a different route to arrive at a fractional number of distillations. One of the oldest distilleries in Scotland, Mortlach has six stills, all different shaped and sized. Some of Mortlach’s spirit is distilled conventionally: one pass through the wash still, and then one through the spirit still.

A small portion of the low wines is reserved and directed through a small, strange little still Mortlach calls the “Wee Witchie,” where it’s distilled three more times, with only the hearts added to the final whisky. The resulting whisky is said to be distilled 2.81 times...

Benromach distillery has unveiled a new Scotch that’s been triple distilled before being aged some eight years. The wort is first distilled in a wash still before receiving two further distillations in a spirit still. The first vintage of this offering, 2009, was then 'put to rest' in first fill bourbon barrels before being bottled at 50% ABV.

Towser (1963 – 1987) is probably the most famous distillery cat, having gained her reputation by killing 28 899 mice (statistical number)… She even got a mention in the famous Guinesss Book of Records for her life achievement, officially recognising her as the ‘world’s best mouser”. She lived for 24 years at the Glenturret Distillery in Scotland.

The peat used to dry the barley and bring this characteristic smoky aroma to some of your favourite whiskies was probably between 1000 to 5000 years old... peatbogs only grow by around 1mm every year… Whisky is a game of patience!

1.2 billion bottles of Scotch whisky were shipped from Scotland in 2018. That’s 41 bottles every second!

A 25ml measure of whisky contains around 55 calories. That’s the same number of calories as a peach. Others have differing values, but you do add calories!

You could fit the contents of 10.6 trillion standard bottles of whisky into Loch Ness. However, I'm not advising anyone tries this. Nessie is probably not a big drinker.

With a value of £4.359 billion, Scotch whisky exports accounted for over 20 per cent of all UK food and drink exports in 2017.

Suntory has created its very own yeast strain: Suntoryeus Lactobacillus.

Some 34 bottles of whisky are exported from Scotland every second.

The Scottish Parliament first taxed whisky in 1644.

Licensed Scottish whisky production was banned from 1757 to 1760 due to a poor grain harvest.

With a population of 5.3 million, and more than 20 million barrels of whisky in store, Scotland has almost four casks of whisky per citizen.

A 30-year-old cask of Macallan set a new world record in 2017 for the most expensive whisky cask ever sold at auction. It fetched a whopping £375,000.

Mountain Dew was originally meant to be a whisky chaser.

The Glenfiddich bottle is triangular in shape to represent the three pillars of whisky making: air, water and barley.

The Balvenie 8 YO was marketed in a triangular glass bottle in 1971.

The vast majority of whisky exported from Scotland is blended, not single malt.

Japanese whisky makers rarely trade casks with one another due to how competitive the market is.

Un-aged American whiskey is often called ‘white dog’.

The co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson, demanded whisky on his deathbed but was refused it.

While filming in the Congo, the majority of the cast of The African Queen became sick with dysentery from drinking the water. Director John Huston and actor Humphrey Bogart emerged unscathed, allegedly because they drank nothing but whisky throughout.

Ardbeg sent whisky to the International Space Station to test how zero gravity affects the maturation.

Early in 2018, the world’s first regulated whisky investment fund was launched. Single Malt Fund allows investors to buy a small part of a bigger collection of rare and limited-edition whiskies.

As per the Scottish Whisky Regulations of 2009, Scotland is divided into two protected localities (Campbeltown and Islay) and three protected regions (Highland, Lowland, and Speyside).

According to The French Federation of Spirits, whisky accounts for the highest retail sales of any spirit in France at 47.2%. Compare this fact with sales of Cognac which makes up only 0.7 per cent of sales.

Some 43% of German tourists in Scotland visit a distillery while visiting, making it the second most popular activity for the demographic.

John Jameson, the founder of Jameson’s Irish whisky was Scottish.

The same John Jameson was the great-grandfather of the radio transmission pioneer, Guglielmo Marconi.

There was a whisky rebellion in Pennsylvania in 1794 due to whisky taxing. The tax was eventually repealed in 1802.

John ‘Johnnie’ Walker was a grocer in Kilmarnock, Scotland in the mid-1800s who specialised in blending tea before he decided to start blending whisky.

The first Scottish distillery to install a Coffey Still was the Grange Distillery, which fell silent in 1851.

White Horse is a mildly smoky Blended Scotch today. First produced by James Logan Mackie in 1861, it was particularly noted for its free use of the heavily smoked Lagavulin single malt Scotch whisky.

The name "White Horse" comes from an ancient inn in Edinburgh's Canongate.

The White Horse Blended Scotch Whisky of today contains 40 percent malts including Talisker and Linkwood.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the advertising slogan of White Horse Whisky was "you can take a white horse anywhere", accompanied by a white horse in various settings, such as a garden party.

During the Prohibition era in the USA (1920-33), there was a loop-hole in the law which allowed import and production of liquor for ‘medicinal and sacramental’ purposes. White Horse whisky could be imported as a medicinal spirit. So was Laphroaig.

Despite its smokiness, Ardbeg is renowned for its delicious sweetness, a phenomenon that has affectionately become known as ‘the peaty paradox’.

In a change from the usual one-off Committee Releases, Ardbeg 8 Years Old will be around for a while – not forever, but long enough to give you more than one chance to get hold of a bottle.

The spooky ageing warehouse of Highland Park Distillery in the Orkney Islands is believed to house the ghost of Eunson Magnus, a long-deceased Orkney man.

An aged ex-Sherry whisky is new territory for Ardbeg, so they wanted some opinions, producing the 8 YO For Discussion expression July 2021 for that express purpose. The Ardbeg Committee’s experienced palates are expected to provide the said opinion.

Ardbeg is the world’s most highly awarded smoky single malt whisky this century. Since 2008, Ardbeg has won more than 50 gold and double gold medals in key whisky competitions.

Ian Hunter was the last of the Johnston family to own and manage the Laphroaig distillery, between 1908 and 1944.

In 2019, Laphroaig released a new Scotch whisky, The Ian Hunter Story Book One: Unique Character in a novel manner, in the form of a heavy tome that, after a few pages, revealed a neat slot with a bottle holding liquid 30 years old and at 46.7% ABV nestled therein. It was also the first chapter of a series of rare and collectable aged whiskies that honour the legacy of Ian Hunter.

15 such volumes are planned for annual release, covering the history behind Laphroaig and the characters that created it.

They will all be 30 YO or older, unchillfiltered, 70 Cl and bottled at around the 47% ABV mark.

Over time, the original smokiness of Laphroaig’s bottlings, including this 30 YO whisky has become less of an assault on the senses.

The second release of Ian Hunter’s series has come in 2021. Book Two: Building An Icon is at 48.2% ABV.

Book Three: Source Protector 70 Cl ABV 49.9% will be a 33 Year Old, bottled at 49.9% ABV.

Indian Amrut is not the only Fusion Whisky, just the first. The Glover Fusion Whisky will be the second.

The second title in the fusion whisky series, The Kincardine, is a 7 YO blended malt whisky at 52.9% ABV and a fusion of the Indian Amrut single malt whisky and Scotch from Glen Elgin and Macallan distilleries.

The E&K 5 YO Blended Malt 57.8% ABV is the third, a fusion of Scotch whisky from Ardmore and Glenrothes distilleries and malt whiskies from Amrut Distillery in India.

The Glover Fusion Whisky Ltd. was originally formed as a small enterprise for Thomas Blake Glover, TBG & Co. To honour his achievements and role in the historical relationship between Scotland and Japan, independent bottler, Adelphi Distillery Ltd., was asked to create a blend of Japanese and Scotch malt whiskies.

Adelphi was offered the chance to select a single refill ex-sherry hogshead from one of the few remaining casks from Hanyu Distillery. It was shipped to England for marrying with a carefully determined volume of Scotch whisky from two single casks: 35% from an American oak ex-sherry hogshead distilled at Longmorn, and a minor percentage from a Spanish oak ex-sherry butt distilled at Glen Garioch.

The final ratio was assessed through extensive trial vattings by Alex Bruce and Charles MacLean. It was launched as a 22 year old malt whisky in 2015 at an ABV of 53.1%.

The Winter Queen is the next in the series of iconic blends from Fusion Whisky and Adelphi, created in honour of the Scottish princess, Elizabeth Stuart. It is a blend of Scotch malt whisky from Longmorn and Glenrothes distilleries and malt whisky from Zuidam Distillery in the Netherlands at 52.9% ABV.

The Brisbane 5 YO Blended Malt 57.5% ABV is a fusion of Scotch malt whisky from two Spanish oak ex-sherry hogsheads distilled at Glen Garioch, Highland, part of an ex-sherry butt distilled at Glen Grant, Speyside and three ex-Apera casks distilled at Starward Distillery, Melbourne.

The Glover 5th Edition Fusion by Adelphi 4 YO Cask Strength 54.7% ABV contains two of the most exciting single malts in the world: Chichubu from Japan and Adelphi's own Ardnamurchan Distillery.

Today, Jameson is the best-selling Irish whiskey in world.

By the beginning of the 20th century, Irish whiskey was firmly positioned as the best-selling whisky in the world. Its global market share has been estimated at around 70%.

It was the best-selling imported whisky in the U.S., outselling both Canadian whisky and the then fledgling Scotch whisky industry. Irish whiskey even outsold Scotch whisky in England.

The “big four” Dublin based distillers, John Jameson, John Power, William Jameson and George Roe, dominated the whisky trade with an annual capacity of over five million gallons of whisky a year.

By the end of the century, roughly 40% of Dublin’s work force was employed in the brewing and distilling industry.

Derry, Cork and Belfast were also major distillery centres.

Ardbeg 8 Years Old for Discussion is the answer to the question ‘what if, in an alternative universe, Ardbeg Ten Years Old was not the distillery’s “flagship” aged expression?’

Macduff Highland Single Malt Scotch whisky distillery has a classic, clean and functional Delme-Evans design, with the stillhouse being the most intriguing part of the engineering.

In here are five stills – two wash and three spirit – all of which have upward-tilting lyne arms that have a right angled kink in them.

The spirit stills also have horizontal shell and tube condensers. The character is nutty (slightly sulphury at new make stage), with quick mashing, short fermentation and cold condensers. It is this last technique which adds weight to the spirit. It could well be that the kink in the lyne arm helps create just enough reflux to contribute a balancing fruitiness.

Macduff whisky is bottled by its owner as either Glen Deveron or The Deveron.

Between 1966 and 1972, it became part of William Lawson, the whisky arm of Martini & Rossi.

Passport is a Speyside-influenced blended Scotch whose key markets are Brazil, Angola, Mexico, India, Russia and Eastern Europe.

The blend recipe for Passport was developed by Chivas Brothers’ blender Jimmy Lang during the 1960s.

It was a classical Chivas blend in that it embraced the company’s Speyside single malts, including Strathisla and Glen Keith. Indeed, Glen Keith was long promoted as the ‘Home of Passport’, with a banner replicating the bottle label displayed in the distillery entrance.

During the 1970s malt from the newly-built Allt-a-Bhainne and Braes of Glenlivet (now Braeval) distilleries began to appear in the Passport recipe.

Jimmy Lang served as master blender for Seagram’s Scottish subsidiary Chivas Brothers 1971 - 1989.

As well as his role in the creation of Passport, Lang developed the 100 Pipers blend and was responsible for Seagram’s key Scotch brands Chivas Regal and Royal Salute.

Roseisle Speyside Single Malt Scotch whisky distillery is a ‘flexible’ distillery. Six of its seven pairs of stills can switch between stainless steel or standard (copper) shell and tube condensers.

If a light grassy spirit is required, long fermentation (in excess of 90 hours) is used, along with slow distillation with air rests, and condensing in the copper condensers.

If a heavy style is needed then the stainless steel condensers will be used. The lack of extended copper ‘conversation’ will add the requisite weight to the spirit.

A nutty (malty) style could also be produced by shortening mashing and fermentation regimes.

The grassy style which is currently produced is different noticeably to that from other Diageo sites such as Glen Ord or Royal Lochnagar.

Cork’s West Cork Distillers, which owned the North Mall and Midleton distilleries, the latter the predecessor to Irish Distillers Ltd (IDL) New Middleton distillery where Jameson whiskey is produced today, had a capacity of 1.5 million gallons.

Derry’s Watts distillery, where the Tyrconnell brand of whiskey was produced, had a capacity of two million gallons.

Belfast’s Royal Irish Distillers had a capacity of 2.5 million gallons and produced Dunville’s, the best-selling Irish whiskey in the U.S. They also had the largest inventory of aging whiskey in Great Britain.

The Tyrconnell brand is produced today at the Cooley distillery, a subsidiary of Beam Suntory, while the Dunville brand is produced by the Echinville distillery.

By comparison, most Scotch whisky distilleries had a capacity of less than 100,000 gallons. The Glenlivet distillery, the largest Scottish distillery at the time, had a capacity of 200,000 gallons.

Robert Burns, Scotland’s bard, in his late eighteenth century poem Scotch Drink, called the native whisky of Scotland “. . . my Muse! guid auld Scotch Drink . . .”

The greatest threat of violence to legal distillers from smugglers in the Glenlivet area existed when shipments of legal whisky wended their way south to Perth and Dundee through the desolate glens and hillsides. The most dangerous was the “Spittal of Glenshee.”

In 1868, the laird of Aberlour[fellow legitimate distiller James Gordon], presented George Smith with a pair of hair-trigger pistols for ten guineas.

George Smith came to be known later on in life as “Old Minmore.”

The real Glenlivet. became the subject of a popular verse: Glenlivet it has castles three Drumin, Blairfeldy, and Deskie, And also one distillery More famous than the castles three.

James Chivas was well aware of the already legendary malt whisky made at George Smith’s Drumin Glenlivet Distillery, the one people called “the real Glenlivet.” James, therefore, made the stocking of this top-notch malt whisky a priority and a personal mission.

In 1975, Chivas Brothers was instructed to remove the Royal Warrant from Chivas Regal by that year’s end, 132 years after the first appointment.

Beyond the direct positive effect of the Royal Appointments, the queen’s influence and powerful persona encouraged the evolution of a whole new stratum of customers for Stewart & Chivas.

Stewart & Chivas and their famous victuals had become such a phenomenon that by the 1860s their business reached far south into England as the nobles returned home in the autumn.

The affluent English likewise brought with them a fervent, unquenchable thirst for the whisky of Scotland, but made it clear to James that they fancied a tamer, smoother whisky than that offered by most of the Highland malt distillers.

James spent more time in his office mixing various sample whiskies in an attempt to find a proprietary blend worthy of the Stewart & Chivas name as well as a blend that would fulfill the desires of the moneyed English.

On the heels of the implementation of the landmark Illicit Distillation (Scotland) Act of 1822 and the Excise Act of 1823, an explosion of licit malt distilleries mushroomed all over Scotland.

Following the path of George Smith’s Drumin Glenlivet Distillery, other fabled malt whisky distilleries like Macallan, Fettercairn, Longrow, Balmenach, and Mortlach, also began in 1824.

Ben Nevis, Port Ellen, Strathisla, Kippen, Glencadam, and Glenury opened in 1825.

Aberlour and Pulteney opened in 1826.

In 1835, only one single malt distillery, Lochruan, was licensed.

The Highlands’ notoriously combustible Era of Smuggling was largely doused by 1840, to the relief and gratification of both Parliament and the Highland land barons. The near two-century-long epidemic of illicit whisky making had been eradicated through the slow-dripping antidote of legislation.

George offered customers two varieties of Drumin Glenlivet at different “proof” levels in the 1830s and 1840s, ~65% & 72% ABV.

In the nineteenth century, all malt whiskies, including George’s prized Drumin Glenlivet, were dispensed straight from the barrel to the goblet without any reduction in strength.

The English invented the idea of proof in the seventeenth century for the purpose of assigning accurate duties according to alcoholic potency. The higher the alcoholic content, the stiffer the duties.

From the mid-1600s to 1818, excise officials routinely determined the alcoholic strength of beverages by mixing a portion with gunpowder, lighting it and gauging the intensity, the colour and the duration of the flame.

In 1816, Bartholomew Sikes, an excise official, perfected the hydrometer, a device that measured the specific gravity of liquids. From 1818 on, excise officials calculated alcoholic strength with a hydrometer.

To the British, a “proof spirit” contains 57.1 % alcohol and 42.9 % water.

In the US, proof signifies 50 % alcohol, 50 % water, a much simpler set up.

George’s popular frontline Drumin Glenlivet whisky, sold at a per gallon price of 10 shillings, registered at 11 % higher than proof, which probably meant that it hovered at from 60 to 65 % alcohol. This robust whisky, hardly a timid wallflower, was George’s best seller and was almost certainly cut with water by the majority of malt whisky drinkers.

For people with even stronger constitutions and perhaps cast-iron intestines, he also sold a flamethrower, high-octane version of Drumin Glenlivet at what was depicted as “25 % over proof” for 12 shillings and sixpence per gallon. About 70-71% ABV.

Actor Humphrey Bogart commented during a slump in his film career, “I never should have switched from Scotch to martinis.”

Entertainer and famed Scotch admirer Joe E. Lewis quipped, “Whenever someone asks me if I want water with my Scotch, I say ‘I’m thirsty, not dirty.’”

Since the first half of the nineteenth century, the Scotch whisky industry’s visionary, if pragmatic, captains piggybacked its exportation onto a never-before-seen juggernaut, the rapidly expanding British Empire.

George Smith stopped for a night in a heavily frequented inn in Spittal of Glenshee and saw one nasty smuggler named Shaw and his band of thugs eyeing him. George dozed off into a light sleep, both pistols cocked and ready, one in each hand. Shaw apparently pulled out a large butcher knife, leaned over George and softly uttered, “This gully [knife] is for your bowels.” A fully awake George uncovered the pistol in his right hand and aimed it directly at Shaw’s forehead, saying, “And this for a hole between your eyes.” George then discharged the pistol in his left hand into the fireplace across the room, causing Shaw to flee.

The most significant outcome of first Stein’s and later Coffey’s system started to take shape in the late 1840s and 1850s when pioneering whisky blenders, such as Andrew Usher, John Haig, John Walker, Matthew Gloag, George Ballantine, William Teacher, John Dewar, and Francis and Walter Berry, began combining the ethereal whiskies from column stills with meatier, more charismatic Highland malt whiskies from pot stills.

Royal Warrants had expiration dates, which may explain why some of the Warrants first granted Stewart & Chivas and then Chivas Brothers appear to be renewed.

Following the landmark Illicit Distillation (Scotland) Act of 1822 and the Excise Act of 1823, an explosion of licit malt distilleries mushroomed all over Scotland. Between 10 October 1823 and 9 August 1824, no fewer than 79 new stills were commissioned. The number of licensed distilleries in operation grew swiftly from 111 in 1823 to 263 by 1825.

In 1860, Guinness’s Extra Double Stout sold for 4 shillings, 6 pence per bottle; rum ranged from 9 to 14 shillings per gallon, while brandy garnered a steep 32 shillings per gallon because of stiff duties. Ordinary Highland malt whisky sold for 6 shillings 6 pence per gallon; finer malt whisky at 11 percent over proof brought in 8 shillings per gallon; and the malt whisky from George Smith’s new Glenlivet distillery at Minmore, considered Scotland’s crème de la crème, sold for 20 to 22 shillings per gallon.

James married an attractive young woman Joyce Clapperton at the mature age of 44. They had 4 children, Julia, Alexander, Williamina and Charles James.

Entrepreneurs William Hespeler and George Randall established the Granite Mills & Waterloo Distillery in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada- the company that Canadian whisky magnate Joseph Emm Seagram would purchase in 1883, marking the official beginning of the Seagram legacy in the annals of beverage alcohol.

In December 1882, Charles James Joyce Chivas married Emma Grosskopf in his adopted US city of Milwaukee.

Charles James Joyce Chivas was paid a monthly retainer as part of his father’s Will.

The water for the distillery came from a pristine subterranean source, called Josie’s Well, the same water source used in the distillery today.

In 1863, the Strathspey Railway opened a station in the village of Ballindalloch, a mere eight miles from Minmore. A train traveled daily from Ballindalloch south to the town of Tomintoul. Casks of The Glenlivet were soon being transported to the railway station at Ballindalloch on wagons. Running southeast to northwest, the Strathspey Railway also connected the hamlets of Boat of Garten and Craigellachie.

By the last quarter of the 1800s, Scotch whisky was available in most ports of call around the world.

Today, Scotch whisky can be found in over 200 nations.

There are ~137 distilleries in operation in Scotland today.

The last ten NEW distilleries are crowd-funded.

Numerous entities are promoting investment in whisky in Scotland and the UK.

Greater Scotland includes the 787 islands of the Inner Hebrides, Outer Hebrides, the Orkneys, and the Shetlands.

Of these rugged and windswept islands, 130 are inhabited. Six of the inhabited islands—Arran, Islay, Skye, Mull, Orkney, and Jura—currently produce single malt whisky.

Ben Nevis in the western Highlands is Scotland’s highest peak at 1,344 metres.

Today, only one percent of Scotland’s primeval forest remains. Deforestation likewise indirectly affected the Scotch industry, in that, with the forests gone, the main source of fuel in prehistoric Scotland became peat.

Scotland has no shortage of peat since peat bogs still cover an estimated 810,000 hectares (over 2 million acres) of the nation’s surface.

The Guild of Barber-Surgeons was a powerful professional entity in Edinburgh at the turn of the sixteenth century. Their mission, as royally sanctioned by the King’s “The Seal of Cause,” was to maintain and promote the highest standards of surgical practice.

The Guild of Barber-Surgeons was so highly regarded, in fact, that in 1505 King James IV bestowed on them the exclusive right to distill and peddle their aqua vitae for medicinal purposes within Edinburgh.

Glenlivet, or Gleann-liobh-aite in Gaelic, means “valley of the smooth flowing one.

The brewing and distilling industry in the USA organised dozens of anti-prohibition or pro-moderation counter-lobbies. Known as the “wets” as opposed to the pro-prohibition “drys,” the groups drew extensive support from Irish and German communities in the U.S., both of which were heavily represented in the brewing and distilling trades.

Prohibition had plenty of loopholes. There was a broad exemption for alcoholic beverages used in religious rituals, a factor that led to a dramatic rise in self-proclaimed priests organising their own congregations.

Prohibition had two other unintended consequences. The number of arrests from the violation of Prohibition skyrocketed, overwhelming the court system and resulting in multi-year long waits before cases could go to trial. In response, prosecutors introduced the then novel idea of the plea bargain to clear the backlog of cases.

The second unintended consequence was more far reaching. Taxes on alcoholic beverages had funded between 30% and 40% of federal spending. States relied on alcohol taxes, on average, for more than 50% of their expenditures. New York State, for example, derived more than 75% of its tax revenue from taxes on alcoholic beverages. Prohibition eliminated a significant source of tax revenue. The result is that the federal government decided to extend the personal income tax, originally instituted on a temporary basis to fund WW I expenditures, for the foreseeable future. Many states adopted their own income taxes to fill the deficit produced by Prohibition.

The Phylloxera boom would produce a corresponding bust. At the heart of that bust was the case of the infamous Pattison brothers.

Robert Pattison started in the Scotch whisky business by leasing the Teaninch Distillery from 1850 until 1869. In 1887, with his brother Walter and a number of other partners, he formed a blending company in Leith under the name Pattison, Elder and Co, and, at the peak of the Phylloxera boom, went public.

In 1896, the company became a distiller as well. The Pattisons now went on an acquisitions binge that saw the company, Pattison Ltd., acquire half of the Glenfarclas distillery, the Ardgowan distillery, and a substantial part of the Aultmore-Glenlivet and Oban distilleries.

This expansion came against a background of easy credit from the banks and heightened investor interest in the Scotch industry.

In the 1890s alone, 33 new malt distilleries were built and even more distilleries were expanding their capacity.

At one point the company gave away 500 African grey parrots, which had been trained to shout out “buy Pattison whisky” and “Pattison whisky is the best” to their retail customers; the first example of in-store interactive advertising.

By 1899, however, the company fell apart. The collapse of Pattison Ltd. was just the most visible aspect of a much broader industry problem of increasing overproduction and over investment.

In 1898 Scotch whisky production had peaked at roughly 35.8 million gallons versus demand of 22.3 million gallons. Excess production had grown from two million gallons in 1891 to thirteen and a half million by 1898.

A new challenge emerged from Irish distillers. They argued that the blending of malt and grain whisky was not true whisky and should be banned. The Irish challenge prompted the establishment of a Royal Commission to investigate the industry and to determine once and for all “what exactly was whisky?” In 1909, after 18 months of hearings, the Royal Commission issued an exhaustive report confirming that the blending of malt and grain whisky constituted “real whisky” and recommending that these blended whiskies should continue to be produced and sold.

No sooner had this latest challenge to the Scotch whisky industry been averted, World War I would set the industry back for the better part of two decades.

The big Irish distillers opposed the Spirits Act of 1860, sparking a long running debate on what exactly was whisky. Notwithstanding the opposition of the big distillers, however, Ireland was producing a lot of grain whiskeys, and many Irish merchants and exporters began to dilute their whiskey, often excessively, by blending grain whiskey into their pot still whiskey. The issue was finally settled by a 1908 Royal Commission that concluded that blends of grain and malt whisky were in fact whisky.

The Spirits Act of 1860, also called the Scotch Whisky Act of 1860, is wrongly attributed to William Ewart Gladstone. He was the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Henry Temple's Govt in 1860.

The Spirits Act of 1860 had been crucial to the fortunes of the Scotch whisky industry, which boasted 111 operational distilleries in 1868, as it allowed for the first time the blending of spirits under bond without payment of duty, the storage of blended spirits in vats, and the filling of casks with blended spirit in bond.

Gladstone's budget of 1860 was introduced on 10 February along with the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty between Britain and France that would reduce tariffs between the two countries.

Blending of malt whiskies had been permitted in bond on payment of duty and holding fees since 1823. Bonded warehouses could be set up under supervision of the Town Clerk and required retention of barrels of spirits for two years, quickly changed to three.

Very few traders paid heed to this Act, with average retention time being as low as three months. The trader's word had to be accepted as to age and quality.

Blending of Grain whiskies with Malt whiskies was permitted in 1860, but limited to distillers only. The end result was a much milder and flavoursome spirit. The Irish malt whisky industry opposed the introduction of Grain whisky, refusing to even call it whisky.

The initial purpose of blending had been to reduce the cost of whisky, but it was soon discovered that in the hands of a skilful practitioner, a very drinkable and consistent product could be created.

Since most grocers and vintners were also dealers in spirits, they raised an outcry and were permitted to blend Grain and Malt whiskies in bond starting 1863 in an extension to the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty.

Further legislation during the 1860s aided the cause of blending, namely the fact that from 1864 spirit strength could be reduced using water in approved warehouses, and 1867 saw bottling whisky for domestic consumption in bonded warehouses.

A growing number of large distilleries in the Lowlands made grain spirit on an industrial scale, and one effect of the incipient blending boom, which would really take off during the 1870s, was a growing interest in malt whiskies produced in what we now call the Speyside region of production in north-east Scotland, but what was usually referred to in the 19th century as ‘Glenlivet.’

Apart from the famous Glenlivet itself, the area already had a reputation for fine whisky-making, being home to distilleries such as Aberlour, Cardhu, Glenfarclas, Glen Grant, Glenlivet, Macallan, Mortlach and Strathisla.

Speyside whiskies soon found favour among blenders, with commensurate expansion of distilling interests.

Campbeltown also grew steadily and in 1868, Benmore distillery became the 19th distillery to be established in the remote Argyllshire port. It was built by Glasgow-based distillers and blenders Bulloch Lade & Co, and boasted an annual output of 125,000 gallons (568,000 litres), making it one of the larger distilleries in the royal burgh.

In Edinburgh, the Caledonian distillery, which had been established in 1855 to distil grain whisky on a grand scale, was augmented by the installation in 1867 of two large pot stills alongside its existing Coffey apparatus, with the intention of making 'Irish-style whisky of the Dublin variety.'

Such a development was doubtless due in part to the large numbers of Irish nationals who migrated to work in Scotland and England as the economy flourished during the 1860s.

There was also a widespread appetite for Irish whiskey among the British public in the years before blended Scotch really established itself, due to its uniformity of character compared to the output of Scotland’s pot stills.

In Ireland, the blending revolution lagged behind that of Scotland, with many of the largest and most powerful distilling enterprises refusing to admit that ‘Irish’ whisky could be anything other than ‘pure pot still’ – made from a mash comprising malted and unmalted barley, distilled in a conventional copper pot still.

Aqua vitae (‘water of life’ in Latin) was the generic term for distilled spirits throughout the Roman Empire, widely used during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and translated into many languages. In Gaelic, it was uisge beatha, in Irish uisce beatha.

Whisky connoisseur Charles MacLean says that this was Anglicised from uiskie (c.1618) to whiskie (1715) to whisky (1746). F Paul Pacult, author of ‘A Double Scotch’, 2005, says that Aqua Vitae ultimately became Whisky in 1736.

The spelling Whiskey is found equally common in those days. In fact, the Hansard of 1896 uses the term Whiskey. Whisky or whiskey is by convention, not law: the Royal Commission on Whiskey and Other Potable Spirits (1908/09) spelt both Irish and Scotch with an ‘e’ throughout.

Gavin Smith writes in his A-Z of Whisky: "The first use of Scotch with the sense of specifically relating to whisky occurs in 1855, 'while malt liquors give our Scotch and Irish whiskies'”…

Silly rules of thumb like ‘countries without an e in their name…,etc. can be discarded.

is usually a time for celebration in the whisky world –Fèis Ìle, the Islay Festival of Malt and Music, a week-long celebration of Scotland’s most distillery-packed island, with whisky, music, dancing and more is held at the end of May.

In the long drawn out battle with the virus, the distilleries have again taken the party online– it’s time for The 2nd Virtual Fèis Ìle.

Festival week (Saturday-Saturday: a long week) is usually very simple: there are nine distilleries on Islay, and each gets a day of celebration – newcomers Kilchoman and Ardnahoe share the Wednesday.

Every year, Douglas Laing releases a new Big Peat whisky for the Fèis Ìle festival and the tradition was continued in 2020 with the new Big Peat 8 Years Old A846.

The A846 is a “legendary” road that links whisky fans to distilleries across the Scottish island of Islay before steering up through Jura.

The Big Peat 8 Years Old A846 is aged for eight years and bottled at 46% ABV.

In 1878, a polemical piece of writing called Truths about Whisky, was commissioned and published by the four most influential Irish distilling houses, Messrs John Jameson & Sons, William Jameson & Co, John Power & Son, and George Roe & Co, all based in Dublin.

George Roe’s establishment – had an annual capacity of some nine million litres. Even today, that would place it among the most productive handful of Scotland’s malt distilleries.

In total, 23 Irish distilleries were operational during 1868, ranging geographically from Bushmills on the north Antrim coast via Belfast and Londonderry to Cork in the south, Dublin in the east, and Limerick and Galway in the west.

Irish independence in 1922 hurt Irish whisky exports badly. Following independence, Irish distillers lost access to markets in the British Empire.

Before Prohibition, Irish whiskey remained the best-selling imported whiskey by the United States. Prohibition overturned Irish whiskey’s century long dominance of the American whiskey market in favour of the Scots.

Canada went through a similar experience with Prohibition as the U.S. The Dominion Alliance, an umbrella organisation of Canadian temperance groups, advocated for provincial wide bans on the consumption of alcohol.

During World War I many provinces banned the manufacture of “intoxicating” beverages as part of the war effort and then extended the ban following the end of the war.

Prohibition decimated the Irish whiskey industry. Many distilleries closed.

The period marked the beginning of an industry wide consolidation that would continue until the 1970s, a period that is sometimes referred to as the lost century of Irish whiskey.

The Chivas 100 Malts bottling: One hundred of Scotland's finest malts were vatted together to create the Chivas Century of Malts. It was released in 1995 and contains some of the rarest malts like Craigduff, Glenisla peated Glen Keith. A little accompanying booklet by Jim Murray describes all of the 100 distilleries in brief.

The 100 distilleries are Aberfeldy, Aberlour, Allt a `Bhainne, Ardbeg, Auchentoshan, Auchroisk, Aultmore, Balblair, Balmenach, Balvenie, Banff, Ben Nevis, Benriach, Benrinnes, Benromach, Blair Athol, Bowmore, (Royal) Brackla, Braeval, Brechin, Bunnahabhain, Caol Ila, Caperdonich, Clynelish, Convalmore, Cragganmore, Craigduff, Craigellechie, Dailuaine, Dallas Dhu, Dalmore, Dalwhinnie, Deanston, Dufftown, Fettercairn, Glen Albyn, Glenallachie, Glenburgie, Glencadam, Glen Craig, Glen Elgin, Glen Esk, Glenfarcles, Glenfiddich, Glengarioch, Glenglassaugh, Glen Grant, Glengoyne, Glenisla, Glen Keith, Glenkinchie, The Glenlivet, Glenlochy, Glenlossie, Glen Mhor, Glen Moray, Glenrothes, Glen Scotia, Glen Spey, Glentauchers, Glenturret, Glenugie, Glenury Royal, Highland Park, Imperial, Inchgower, Inchmurrin, Inverleven, Isle of Jura, Kinclaith, Knockando, Ladyburn, Lagavulin, Laphroaig, Ledaig, Linkwood, Littlemill, Longmorn, Macallan, Macduff, Mannochmore, Miltonduff, Mortloch, Mosstowie, Ord, Pittyvaich, Pulteney, Rhosdhu, Scapa, Speyburn, Springbank, Strathisla, Strathmill, Tamdhu, Tamnavulin, Teaninich, Tomatin, Tomintoul, Tormore and Tullibardine.

Glenfiddich, arguably the first single malt to be sold in its own right, was also the first to be sold in airport retail shops.

July 27th is National Scotch Day.

Babute distillery is one of many lost distilleries in Argyll that was operational briefly in late 18th century.

Gallowhill Lowland Single Malt Scotch Whisky Distillery is a here-and-gone Paisley distillery, open from 1798 to 1799.

It was run by a partnership of James MacFarlane and Elizabeth Harvie, of the Harvies who operated Dundashill and Yoker distilleries in Glasgow.

The distillery sat in the Gallowhill area of Paisley, north of the town centre on Brewster Avenue, today part of a large housing estate not far from the M8 motorway and Glasgow Airport.

220 years ago, the area would have been very largely rural. Back then, a burn, now long culverted and vanished, probably flowed from Gallowhill down to the River White Cart.

Haig Whisky is the oldest of all Scotch whiskies and may even be the oldest whisky in the world.

Haig Gold Label, the flagship blend of John Haig & Co. was not just Britain’s most popular whisky, it was the first spirit to smash the million case barrier.

It dates back to the twilight years of the 19th century, and before long the packaging had settled on a dumpy, dark brown bottle with a plain white label and a string of medals at the bottom.

By 1939, Haig was Britain’s best-selling Scotch.

Alongside its deluxe Dimple expression, it was especially popular in Britain. By the millennium its UK sales, together with Dimple Haig, had crashed to just 7,500 cases.

The recipe includes Lowland malts like Glenkinchie with a heavy reliance on Cameronbridge grain.

‘D’ye ken John Haig?’ asked the early adverts, and the slogan was emblazoned on the mainsail of a yacht that would sail up and down the south coast of England to stoke up demand.

This gave way to the long-running ‘Don’t be vague, ask for Haig’ slogan.

John Haig set up the Kilbagie distillery in the 18th century, although his family were noted distillers some time before that.

His great-great-grandfather was busted in 1655 for distilling on the Sabbath.

His grandson (also called John) founded the Cameronbridge grain distillery in 1824.

Noted members of the Haig clan include WWI Field Marshal Douglas Haig, who was so magnificently lampooned by Stephen Fry in Blackadder Goes Forth.

Kelso Lowland Single Malt Scotch Whisky Distillery was a Borders distillery at Kelso in Roxburghshire that distilled from 1825-47.

Precisely locating Kelso distillery is difficult. One source places it at Rosebank – a mansion and former estate on the north bank of the Tweed on the outskirts of town where now a bridge on the main A698 road crosses the river.

Old maps show no buildings at Rosebank that might be, or might have been, the distillery.

Some way upriver, opposite an island called Kelso Anna, there is a pend with steps down towards the Tweed called Distillery Lane. It leads down to Chalkheugh Terrace and seems the more likely location.

Kelso distillery was opened and licensed to John Mason in 1825.

In 1830 it became a partnership of Mason & Nichol, which lasted until 1833 when John Mason became a sole trader again. Kelso continued under him until 1837 when he was sequestrated.

Of all the old blends, Mackie’s Ancient Scotch could be one of the most precious for its link to the mythical Malt Mill distillery.

Sir Peter Mackie, famously described as ‘one-third genius, one-third megalomaniac and one-third eccentric,’ gave his name to this precious blend.

He owned the Islay distillery of Lagavulin, and was agent for its neighbour, Laphroaig.

Losing the contract for Laphroaig after a bitter dispute, he built a replica distillery in the grounds of Lagavulin and called it Malt Mill. It was designed to make precisely the same style of whisky as Laphroaig – a feat it never really achieved.

The whisky produced at Malt Mill disappeared entirely into Mackie’s blends, particularly White Horse. Or did it?

The distillery is named on bottles of Mackie’s Ancient Scotch, although there is no mention of it being a ‘blend’ or ‘blended’… could it contain single malt from Malt Mill?

Little is known of Mackie’s blend that occasionally surfaces on auction websites, although there were two versions of the whisky.

In the UK there was Mackie’s Ancient Scotch, bottles of which do tantalisingly mention Malt Mill beneath the brand owner, White Horse Distillers Ltd.

The bottling for the US market, called Mackie’s Ancient Brand, does not.

Assuming they are the same whisky, it must date from some time between 1908 when Malt Mill was fired into life, and 1962 when it closed for good.

Whisky writer Serge Valentin has described Mackie’s Ancient Brand as ‘the peatiest blend I have ever tried,’ and speculated that ‘there was quite possibly more than 50% Malt Mill’ in the blend.

Auchmedden distillery (also spelled Auch Madden, Auch Medden and Auchmeddin), an Aberdeenshire distillery, was based on a farm now called Mains of Auchmedden, west of Aberdour Bay, above the picturesque harbour village of Pennan and in the shadow of the ruined Auchmedden castle. The property belonged to the Baird family from 1568, but it was acquired by the Earls of Aberdeen, Gordons, in the mid 18th century.

Two events, the Phylloxera epidemic at the end of the nineteenth century and the imposition of Prohibition in the United States in the early twentieth century, proved pivotal in the growth of the Scotch whisky industry, and led to its ascendency and its current dominance of the spirits market.

In France, production and quality wine were at a peak by the mid-1800s when the first of three tragedies that would cripple the wine industry, and its related brandy industry, struck. The combined effect proved devastating.

The first blow was Odium—specifically uncinula necator—a fungus that causes powdery mildew on grapes. Originating in North America, certain varieties of European wine grapes proved to be particularly susceptible to it. The disease was crippling, but not devastating, it would significantly reduce wine production. This mildew was brought under control in less than a decade.

Just as vintners breathed a sigh of relief the second and even more crippling North American invader—the Phylloxera epidemic—hit them. Phylloxera was caused by a tiny insect, an aphid, sometimes referred to as the grape louse, which attacked the roots of the domesticated, Vitis vinifera, grapevines in Europe.

Native to North America, Phylloxera had not been a problem to European wine makers, notwithstanding the fact that samples of American grape varieties had been exported to Europe for centuries. The advent of steamships completely transformed the potential threat. With fast steamships cutting transatlantic travel to two weeks, insect pests could now survive a transatlantic voyage.

Beginning in 1863, in the French province of Languedoc, French vintners began noticing that a mysterious blight was killing their vines. It was not until 1868 that the grape Phylloxera aphid was discovered as the source of the epidemic, and it was not until 1870 that the solution was discovered.

In that 15-year period, some 40 percent of France’s vineyards were destroyed and the industry was set back for decades. There was worse to come. “Downy” mildew, the third tragedy to hit the European wine industry, came while the French were still looking for a cure for Phylloxera.

Downy mildew was a parasitic fungus that attacked the leaves of grape plants, eventually destroying the leaf tissue of the infected plant. This third plague was remedied at amazing speed, but the damage done by three consecutive blights was catastrophic. In roughly 30 years, wine production in France fell three quarters, and 75 to 85 percent of Europe’s vineyards were obliterated.

It took the French wine and brandy industry almost thirty years to recover. During that period, French Cognac production virtually ceased. Scotch whisky was on its upward incline.

Auchmedden distillery was operated by William Grant – one of countless William Grants in the history of distilling – from 1826-33.

Cabrach Distillery was a farm distillery in the Cabrach, Aberdeenshire, one of few legally sanctioned sites in the area. In the 1800's, the Cabrach was notorious for its illicit distilling of whisky and its ability to evade customs and excise raids due to its inaccessible and inhospitable lands. Some claim the Cabrach as one of the birthplaces of Scottish malt whisky.

Taking its name from the region, Cabrach distillery stood at Haddoch farm, about half a mile north of Upper Cabrach village. The Cabrach Trust was set up to enable the regeneration of this remote upland area. Located in rural Moray, in Northeast Scotland, the Cabrach, is defined as one of the 30 most remote regions in Scotland. A new distillery is planned for this site.

The Cabrach Trust plans to convert the steading buildings at Inverharroch Farm into a historic distillery and heritage centre which will showcase the rich culture and heritage of this haunting and mysterious landscape.

Ardbeg, established in 1815, has led an on and off existence for over 180 years since.

It was not until the brand was purchased by The Glenmorangie Company in 1997 that the Distillery was saved from extinction.

The legacy of the whisky was safeguarded in 2000 by the formation of the Ardbeg Committee, made up of thousands of Ardbeg followers worldwide who are keen to ensure that “the doors of Ardbeg never close again”.

Today there are more than 100,000 members of the Ardbeg Committee in over 130 countries.

Ardbeg is the world’s most highly awarded smoky single malt whisky. Since 2008, Ardbeg has won more than 50 gold and double gold medals in key whisky competitions.

In 1853, when Commodore Matthew Perry sailed his big black ships to Edo harbor, forcing the reluctant samurai rulers to open Japan to trade, he brought with him a few barrels of whisky to keep himself and his crew warm on the long voyage across the Pacific.

He also presented the Emperor a 110-gallon barrel of his finest whisky.

Circa 1875, the Japanese began importing whisky, and local brewers also started making their own versions. This early “whisky” was actually just alcohol with a similar colour to whisky.

The problem today has assumed huge proportions. A large amount of the liquor isn’t actually made in Japan. Some of it isn’t whisky at all.

Unlike most whisky-producing countries, Japan has few rules about what constitutes whisky, let alone what makes it Japanese. Companies can buy spirits in bulk from abroad, bottle and label it “Japanese whisky,” and ship it back out.

Imported by the metal barrel, Scotch or Canadian whisky is watered down, mixed with ethanol and sold as Japanese whisky.

The first modern Japanese whisky distilleries, including Yamazaki, didn’t open until the 1920s.

While they were modeled on Scottish operations and often produced high-quality spirits, they did little to change the overall character of Japanese whisky, which, following World War II, was aimed at everyday salary-men looking for a quick drink after work.

The Japanese government introduced formal definitions for domestic whisky in 1989, but by then the industry was dominated by a few big distilling companies that wanted to keep the rules loose.

After 1989, for example, whisky sold domestically had to contain at least 10% aged malt whisky; the rest could be unaged alcohol, typically made from imported molasses.

Interest in Japanese whisky began to pick up in the early 2000s, snowballing through the next 15 years as the industry’s premium brands, like Hibiki and Yamazaki, racked up global critical acclaim.

Analysts point to fast-growing imports of Scotch and Canadian whisky into Japan in recent years, even as the retail sales of those whiskies remain flat — implying that most of the imported spirit is being bought by distilleries and relabelled as Japanese.

The Japan Spirits & Liqueurs Makers Association announced a new set of industry-wide regulations on 16 February 2021, effective 01 Apr 2021. However, whisky brands have until 31st March 2024 to adhere to them.

The only raw ingredients allowed for use in production are malted grains, other cereal grains, and water extracted in Japan. Malted grains must always be used. Fermentation, distillation, and saccharification must take place in a distillery located in Japan, with the alcohol volume of the distillate not allowed to go above 95% in strength.

Wood casks with a maximum capacity of 700 litres must be used for the maturation of the distilled product and have to be matured in Japan for a minimum of 3 years. Bottling must take place in Japan, and the whisky has to have a minimum ABV of 40%.

Plain caramel colouring (also known as E150a) can be added; this is a common practice in whisky around the world.

Scotch Whisky exports to the US were valued at £1.07bn in 2019 – the industry’s first billion pound market.

In the International Whisky Competition 2021, highlighting the best whiskies for 2021, Scotland has – unsurprisingly – managed to lock out the Top 3 spots with the Ardbeg Uigeadail officially crowned the King of the Casks, Glenmorangie Vintage 1997 in second place (95.1 points), followed by Dewar’s Double Double 32 YO in third (95 points).

Taiwan has been staking their claim, placing fourth with the Kavalan Artist Series: Paul Chiang Peated Malt Single Cask Strength Single Malt Whisky (94.6 points), and placing in three other spots within the Top 15.

Best blended whisky (all categories, all countries), all three top spots were bagged by Dewar. 1st Place: Dewar’s Double Double 32 Year Old; 2nd Place: Dewar’s Double Double 21 Year Old; and 3rd Place: Dewar’s Double Double 27 Year Old.

Illicit distillers and whisky smugglers played a constant battle of cat and mouse with excisemen, or gaugers. The canny Scots came up with a variety of creative ways of hiding their precious bounty, including transporting it in coffins!

Illicit stills were common all over Scotland. In Edinburgh their smoke was disguised by the thick sooty chimney smoke that characterised the era. One such distillery was discovered in the lower cellar of the Tron Kirk on the Royal Mile – not a very reputable sideline for a place of worship!

Robert Burns, Scotland’s Bard became an exciseman after falling on hard times in 1788. He took up the post of Excise Officer for Dumfries; in February 1792 he was promoted to the Dumfries Port Division, an appointment that carried a salary of £50 per annum. The pair of pistols which he carried for his personal protection can still be seen today in the National Museum of Scotland.

The continued flouting of the law prompted the Duke of Gordon, on whose land some of the illicit whisky was being produced- with his prior knowledge and tacit permission- to propose in the House of Lords that the Government should make it profitable to produce whisky legally.

In 1823 the Excise Act was passed, which authorised the distilling of whisky in return for a licence fee of £10, and a set payment per gallon of proof spirit.

Smuggling disappeared almost completely over the next decade, paving the way for the Scottish whisky industry we know today.

It’s worth noting that many present day distilleries stand on sites used by the smugglers over two centuries ago – a modern day continuation of a by-gone practice.

In 1831 Aeneas Coffey invented the Patent Still which enabled a continuous process of distillation to take place, leading to the production of grain whisky, a less intense spirit than the previous malt whisky.

This invention was first exploited by Edinburgh distillers Andrew Usher & Co who, in 1860, blended malt and grain whisky together for the first time to produce a lighter flavoured whisky - extending the appeal of Scotch Whisky to a wider market.

In the 1880s the vineyards of France were devastated by the Phylloxera beetle, which wiped out the crops for wine and brandy production. Their disaster was the Scots fortune however - by the time the French industry recovered, Scottish whisky had taken the place of brandy as the preferred spirit.

Since then, Scottish whisky, especially blended whisky, has gone from strength to strength. The tipple is enjoyed worldwide, supports tens of thousands of jobs in Scotland and plays an important part in the Scottish tourism sector.

With its proximity to the shore, Leith was Edinburgh city's whisky district. Having been a centre for the storage of wine and brandy in the 16th century, with access to as many as 100 bonded warehouses, in the early 1820’s Leith was granted one of only six licences issued to ports in Scotland allowing them to store whisky under bond.

The Phylloxera beetle, which had ravaged crops for wine and brandy in France in the 1880’s, meant that the warehouses of Leith that had previously housed this product, were now lying empty. Seeing a gap in the market, whisky makers quickly moved in.

The Vaults in Leith, home to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, was originally a wine warehouse dating back to the 18th century.

Many of the whisky industry’s most famous brand names started out as licensed grocers who began to blend whisky in the 19th century.

One such was George Ballantine, who opened his first shop in the bustling trade district of Cowgate, which is situated under South Bridge.

Ballantine’s reputation soon grew, as did his success. He soon moved to smarter premises in nearby Candlemaker Row, then later to a prestigious location just off fashionable Princes Street.

Today, Ballantine’s is the second biggest selling Scotch whisky worldwide.

Today there are the still the remains of long-gone distilleries across Edinburgh, with the buildings taking on a new lease of life.

The Caledonian Distillery, Easter Dalry Wynd. Situated close to Haymarket Station, The Caledonian Distillery was built in 1855. The distillery closed its doors in 1988 with much of it being renovated and transformed into housing. Today, its 300ft chimney stack remains as a reminder of the building’s history.

Edinburgh distillery stands in Sciennes in the city of Edinburgh. In 1849, Alexander Pearson remodelled a brewery that was built in 1430 and established this distillery. The distiilery was called West Sciennes distillery in those days.

The owner changed several times. Also the name changed from Newington (1851-56) to Glen Sciennes (1856-59). After being taken over by Andrew Usher & Co. in 1859, it was renamed Edinburgh Distillery. It closed in 1925 and is thought to be the last distillery in Edinburgh to have produced single malt.

Dean Distillery, Dean Village. Smaller than the city’s other distilleries, Dean Distillery opened in 1881 and was housed in a converted flour mill on the Water of Leith. Closed in 1922, part of the building remains today and is used as offices.

Brothers John and Andrew Usher were born to the whisky trade. Their father, Andrew Usher Sr, had started out as a spirits dealer in Edinburgh in 1813 and the two brothers became partners in the family business, buying the afore-mentioned Glen Sciennes Distillery in 1859.

During the 1860s, the brothers began promoting new whisky brands for the flourishing UK market. Pioneers of creating blended whisky, they were also among the first to recognise the enormous opportunities for exporting whisky around the world.

The brothers left quite a legacy in Edinburgh – one that you can still smell on the city’s streets.

Andrew Usher never saw the hall that took his name, dying in 1898, 16 years before his dream was realised. The Usher Hall was opened by his widow in 1914 and remains one of the most impressive venues in the city. Despite being built upon the proceeds of Scotch whisky, the hall did not have a bar until the 1980’s!

Holyrood Distillery: Edinburgh’s first single malt distillery for almost 100 years is set within a 180-year-old building next to Holyrood Park and within easy walking distance of the city centre, Holyrood Distillery opened its doors to the public for the first time in July 2019.

Glenkinchie Distillery, situated just 15 miles from Edinburgh in the rolling farmland of East Lothian, houses a museum about malt whisky production, an illicit still, a large scale model of a distillery and various other whisky-related displays to grab your attention.

The Scotch Whisky Experience 5-star visitor attraction tells the tale of Scotland's national drink. Set up in 1987 to educate visitors to Edinburgh about the joys of Scotch whisky, the Scotch Whisky Experience is now home to the world’s largest private collection of Scotch whisky, held in a glittering vault.

When prohibition ended and Americans were once again able to quench their thirst for whiskey, Irish distillers lacked the stocks to meet this new, now legal, demand. The Scot’s had plenty of whisky, and they leveraged their stocks and their reputation for quality into a dominant position in the American whiskey market at the expense of the Irish distillers.Daftmill is one of the very few truly self-sufficient distillery in Scotland.

At the end of the 19th century, Dailuaine was the largest single malt distillery in Speyside and also one of the most innovative in terms of design.

A small percentage of their farm crop (around 100 tons) is diverted for their own use. The process water comes from their own artesian well, and the draff produced after mashing is then fed to their prize beef herd.

Only 20,000 litres are produced during two x three-month seasons, one starting after the end of the busy spring period on the farm and stopping before harvest, the other during the fallow winter period between November and February.

These sixth-generation farmers reckon that they are only the third family to have farmed Daftmill in 1,000 years of existence.

It was only in 2003 that the idea of whisky making began to form in the minds of the owners.

It is the first member of the now burgeoning small-scale distilling movement in Scotland.

None of the maturing stock has yet been released, though samples from casks show that it is mature, balanced with a gentle herbal note, and very much ready for sale. Rarely seen as a single malt bottling (the occasional Flora & Fauna from owner Diageo, (sporadic independent offerings), Dailuaine is one of the many hard-working distilleries which quietly provide fillings for blends.

It produces a heavy ‘meaty’ make given its long fermentation, rapid distillation and the use of stainless steel in the condensers to cut down on copper interaction. That Flora & Fauna bottling (from ex-Sherry casks) shows this mix of richness and sweetness at its best.

A complete rebuild in 1884 saw the installation of Scotland’s first pagoda on a kiln whose pitch was deliberately steep to minimise the contact time between peat smoke and drying malt, one of the clearest indications of how the old ‘Strathspey’ style was changing.

In 1898, it merged with Talisker to form Dailuaine-Talisker Distilleries Ltd.

Dallas Dhu Distillery designed by Charles Doig is now little more than a museum.

Dallas Dhu Speyside single malt Scotch whisky is rarely seen, but when it does emerge from the shadows it shows a sweet fruited edge, some honey, oiliness and a wisp of peat smoke.

Andrew Usher II donated £100,000 to Edinburgh city specifically to fund the new concert hall, named after him, on 23 June 1896. He died before it opened.

He is buried in the Grange Cemetery, Edinburgh with his first wife, Elizabeth Langmuir Miller (1826-1876); his second wife, Marion Blackwood Murray (1847-1925) and several of their children.

His city centre family house is now a converted pub (named the Pear Tree and Andrew Usher & Co) located near the University of Edinburgh.

There are over 300,000 varieties of barley but only a few are suitable for malt whisky production.

Charles Joughin, the baker on-board the doomed Titanic, trod water for three hours before being rescued. He claimed he hadn’t succumbed to the cold due to the amount of whisky he had drunk prior to the accident, while the ship was sinking.

In 1956, Whisky replaced William in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

The year 1994 marked 500 years since the first written reference to Scotch whisky was penned. Many producers released anniversary bottlings.

In Victorian times, some Scottish distilleries allowed workers to stop for a dram each time a bell rang.

Scotch exports earned £139 every second in 2017.

Distilled alcoholic beverages made from gluten grains are gluten-free due to distillation removing gluten proteins.

Andrew Usher, the son of an Edinburgh-based spirits dealer, pioneered Scotch blending in 1860. Blends existed for decades before Usher’s creation; this was the first time that a product had needed to, and successfully managed to, be created consistently from batch to batch for commercial sales.

The process of blending for consistency itself was actually ‘borrowed’ from cognac blenders who had been doing this for years with strikingly consistent results.

They, the Andrew Usher father and son, ended up buying all of Glenlivet’s output to create their blend as well as owning the Edinburgh Distillery.

In 1859 the Usher brothers bought the Glen Sciennes distillery, renaming it the Edinburgh distillery and securing a supply of their own single malt. A massive warehousing and bottling complex – said to be the biggest in the UK – was built nearby at St Leonard’s.

Nikola Tesla drank whisky every day because he thought that it would make him live for 150 years.

The revolving mechanism that drags heavy copper chains around the base of a still to prevent sticking or scorching is called a rummager.

A cooper’s apprentice must work accompanied for four years before being allowed to tackle their own barrel.

Robert Burns once had the job of exciseman and wrote fondly of whisky in his poetry.

One large oak tree is said to yield enough wood for approximately three 60-gallon casks.

In order to finish the screenplay for the Blue Dahlia, writer Raymond Chandler drank whisky for eight days while being supervised by six secretaries, a nurse and a doctor.

At the time of writing, there are 127 distilleries licensed to produce Scotch whisky.

The combination of beer and whisky is known as a ‘boilermaker’ in America, where blue-collar labourers regarded it as an effective pick-me-up after a shift down in the mines.

The Keeper of the Quaich is awarded to those who make an outstanding contribution to the Scotch whisky industry for at least five years and outstanding Keepers may progress to become Masters of the Quaich.

After Prohibition ended, 69-year-old James B. Beam got his distillery up and running in just 120 days.

Jack Daniel’s is Tennessee whiskey, not bourbon.

During the malting process, the barley was traditionally turned with a shovel to promote even malting and reduce the tangling of barley sprouts. As a result of this repetitive motion maltsters suffered a condition which caused one arm to hang lower than the other – known as monkey shoulder.

When Norman Lamont was Chancellor in the early 1990s, the bag which was waved at photographers outside No 11 contained a bottle of Highland Park, while the speech itself was carried in a plastic bag by his then-aide, William Hague.

A royal footman who poured whisky into the Queen’s corgis’ water bowl as a party trick was demoted and had his salary cut.

The Suntory Yamazaki distillery’s first master distiller, Masataka Taketsuru, studied in Scotland before deciding to bring the craft home to Japan.

In June 1875, a bonded warehouse in the Liberties caught fire, and rivers of burning whiskey flowed through the streets of Dublin like lava. Titled The Great Dublin Whiskey Fire, the disaster resulted in the tragic loss of 13 lives and 1,900 casks of whiskey.

George Washington was the only founding father to commercially operate a distillery. It was one of the biggest distilleries of its time, but was unfortunately destroyed by a fire a few years after opening.

Ireland’s Old Bushmills Distillery claims to be the country’s oldest legally functioning distillery. Operations on the present site date back to 1276 by some accounts.

Pot still whiskey is made by combining both malted and unmalted barley in the mashbill, prior to fermentation, and then distilling in traditional copper pot stills.

The monopoly once in sole charge of producing Finnish alcohol (including whisky) was also responsible for the production of Molotov cocktails for its military.

Banff is the most onomatopoeic Scotch distillery and among the least lucky!

On the night of 16 August 1941, Banff distillery was strafed and bombed by the Luftwaffe. A warehouse exploded, sending casks flying into the air and a river of whisky flooding out over the fields and into the river. There was considerable devastation and tales of drunken cows that were incapable of being milked the next day.

Clynelish’s is one of a number of ‘Clearance’ distilleries (Talisker is another example) which appeared in the earlier part of the 19th century. Some landowners forcibly moved tenant farmers from their ancestral lands. The most brutal of these perpetrators were The Duchess and Duke of Sutherland. The Duke established a distillery which he called Clynelish. All were staffed by former farmers who were paid in coin which could only be redeemed at the company’s shops – whose profits went to the Duke. The distillery built a reputation only in 1896 when blenders Ainslie & Heilbron bought it in partnership with John Risk, who was to become the outright owner in 1912. By the end of the century it had become the most highly-priced single malt.

Before they started blending and selling Scotch, the Chivas brothers ran a grocery in Aberdeen, Scotland. It was first opened by a John Forrest 1801; the brothers teamed up in 1857 and start producing whisky then, almost half a century later.

Bailey’s Irish Cream – a blend of cream and Irish whiskey – did not come into existence until 1974. It was the first Irish cream to be commercialised.

The record for most expensive whisky cocktail ever sold is a refresh of the traditional Manhattan made with a 55-year-old Macallan served at Dubai’s Skyview Bar. Costing £4,632, the posh concoction was stirred with a very special oak stick from a cask of Macallan. It was also served with ice made from the same water used to produce the single malt whisky it contains.

PM Henry J Temple’s Govt permitted the blending of malt and grain whisky in bond by 1860 under the Scotch Whisky Act. Gladstone, his Chancellor of the Exchequer was responsible for pushing it through.

This Act, when published, was limited to distillers only.

It took a further three years till grocers could carry out such blending on premises and sale under their own label legally, under an Extension to the French Treaty Act 1863.

In these three years, many other grocers got into the business full time—John Walker, George Ballantine, Peter Thomson of Beneagles, William Teacher and the Berry brothers are good examples. Matthew Gloag III of the Famous Grouse followed later.

The Chivas Brothers company came into being only in 1857, when John Chivas joined his elder brother James in his grocery, wine shop and luxury goods emporium in Aberdeen.

The Forbes-Mackenzie Act permitting vatting of whiskies when in a bonded warehouse was passed in 1853. A larger variety of blended malts were now available to vendors to sell.

In 1915, when WW I was on, the whisky industry came under governmental pressure to help defray finances. David Lloyd George, the teetotaler Chancellor of the Exchequer, attempted to double the duty on spirits. He backed down after the whisky industry agreed to release its wares only after a minimum of three years’ maturation.

In those days, most whisky was bottled at between 15 and 22 degrees under UK proof as it was then known (48.6-44.6% abv in today’s terms).

In 1915, the Government Control Board permitted whisky to be sold at 35 degrees under proof (37.2% abv).

The same year, the Board tried to further reduce the strength of their spirit sold in military bases and urban areas to 50 degrees under proof (28.6% abv). The whisky industry protested and reached a compromise which standardised the strength of whisky everywhere in the UK at 42.9% abv (25 degrees under proof).

On 01 February 1917, the Government, with Lloyd George as Prime Minister, ruled that whisky had to be sold at no more than 30 degrees under proof (40% abv).

The aromatic complexity of a whisky is markedly different between 40% and 43%.

Sanity was restored by PM Ramsay MacDonald in 1929, who allowed registered Scotch Whisky to be sold at any strength up to cask strength, usually 63-65%, with increased duty for higher strength expressions.

The strength of whisky everywhere in the UK was standardised at 42.8% abv. Distillers had the option to use 40% abv if so desired.

Ballantine’s is comprised of some 50 single malts – mostly from Miltonduff and Glenburgie – and four grain whiskies.

The brand’s flagship blend – Ballantine’s Finest – was launched in 1910. Interestingly, the flagship brands of both Johnnie Walker & and Chivas Regal, viz., Johnnie Walker Black Label & Chivas Regal 25 YO were launched in 1909.

The business was sold to Barclay and McKinlay in 1919, who retained the Ballantine’s brand name in favour of Talisker.

In 1935, the group was sold to Canadian distiller Hiram Walker-Gooderham & Worts.

Hiram Walker began purchasing several distilleries, including Miltonduff and Glenburgie – both in 1936, and built the mammoth Dumbarton complex, which housed the largest grain distillery in Europe at that time.

In 2002, the Dumbarton plant was closed down and production shifted to Strathclyde grain distillery, although a large bonded warehouse complex and bottling plant still exist in Dumbarton.

The core portfolio consists of Finest, Limited, 12, 17, 21, 30 and 40-year-olds, while a lime-flavoured extension, Ballantine’s Brasil, was launched in 2013.

After a successful trial at Inverleven, the malt whisky distillery within the firm’s Dumbarton distillery complex in Dumbarton, it was decided to install a Lomond wash and spirit still at Glenburgie in Moray in 1958.

Christened Glencraig, its newmake spirit was distinct from Glenburgie’s, and gave Hiram Walker another malt for its blends without having to invest in a whole new distillery.

Glencraig was produced throughout the 1960s and ‘70s at Glenburgie on Speyside as a blending malt on a pair of Lomond stills.

While independent bottlings of Glencraig occasionally appear, it was never intended as a single malt in its brief life.

The Lomond stills were abandoned at Glenburgie in 1981.

The real Glen Isla is one of the famous Angus glens than runs north to the ski resort of Glenshee. On the other hand, the eponymous malt whisky was a short-lived experiment to produce a smoky Speyside malt at Glen Keith – the Speyside distillery Seagram built next to its Stathisla distillery in Keith in the late 1950s.

Glen Keith was experimental from the start, testing out triple distillation and gas-fired direct heating for its stills.

Among very rare bottlings of Glenisla, hardly any peat was found in a 1977 release from Signatory.

This was because Glenisla was peated in a very peculiar way. Under Seagram, Chivas Brothers had been sending 45-gallon drums of peated water from Stornaway to Glen Keith, where it was run through an angled condenser to concentrate the phenols. Apparently it was added 10 gallons at a time to the wash charge and its impact on the whisky must have been considerably less than using well-peated malt in the traditional way.

Glenisla was only produced in the 1970s, and then only for a couple of years.

The whisky was blended away, most notably in Chivas’ Century of Malts (a vatting of 100 different malt whiskies) in the 1990s.

Mosstowie was one of a handful of short-lived malt whiskies produced on Lomond stills within another distillery – in this case Miltonduff, near Elgin.

Lomond stills, compared to traditional pot stills, were a lot more versatile – you could adjust the position of the lyne arm and the number of rectifying plates in the neck to vary the amount of reflux and thus heaviness of the spirit.

It was deemed perfect for the company’s flagship blend – Ballantine’s Finest, and so Lomond stills were installed at Hiram Walker’s Inverleven, Glenburgie, Scapa and Miltonduff distilleries.

The whisky produced using Miltonduff’s Lomond stills was named Mosstowie, and while the majority was used for the Ballantine’s blend, there have been occasional independent bottlings as a single malt.

Seagram’s 100 Piper’s blend was once a popular brand in the UK, and claimed to be the fourth most popular Scotch in Scotland in 1988. Four years later it was decided to co-opt a famous Scottish regiment into the brand and rechristen it the ‘100 Pipers of the Black Watch,’ just in the UK.

There was just one piper on the label, and in due course the brand became simply The Black Watch blend.

In a study published by the journal Chem, researchers used fluorescent dyes to map age, area of origin and taste of drams from the US, Scotland and Ireland. They hope to harness these findings and develop a method of detecting counterfeit whisky and other alcohol.

During the 1860s, when blending grain and malt whiskies was legalised, the Ushers began promoting new whisky brands for the growing UK market.

They were among the first to recognise the enormous opportunities for exporting Scotch around the world, particularly to the US and in the vast territories of the British Empire. Their most successful brand was Usher’s Old Vatted Glenlivet (also known as OVG).

OVG was once a vatted malt – a mix of single malt whiskies – but by the 1880s it was most certainly what a blended Scotch. The recipe consisted of just over 12% Smith’s Glenlivet, a very small quantity of Royal Brackla (the Ushers owned a share in that business) and some additional malt whisky from their Edinburgh distillery. The vast bulk of the blend – two-thirds – was made up of inexpensive grain whisky from the Caledonian distillery in Edinburgh.

In 2017 Scottish scientists powered a car using a biofuel derived from whisky residue.

Laphroaig hired Scotland’s first ever female distillery manager, Bessie Williamson, in 1954. Rachel Barrie (Bowmore Distillery) was the second female master whisky blender and has paved the way for even more women joining the industry.

After the introduction of taxes on distilling in Scotland in the 17th century, illicit distillers had to go to great lengths to avoid the taxman. There are accounts of barrels being hidden in surprising places including beneath broody hens, in funeral corteges and barrels being ‘nursed’ by breastfeeding mothers.

Iceland is home to just two whisky distilleries, both of which use sheep manure in place of coal/peat as a fuel for kilning barley.

The world’s most high-profile whisky collection of Scotch whisky known is The Diageo Claive Vidiz Whisky Collection with a staggering 3,384 bottles.

Hotel Skansen, Öland, Sweden holds the Guinness World Record for the most varieties of whisky commercially available; 1,179 varieties available for purchase, over 10,000 bottles total.

Octogenarian Italian collector Valentino Zagatti collected 2,951 rare bottles over the last 60 years before selling it to investment firm Scotch Whisky International. It has the world’s oldest bottle dating from 1843.

Lion’s Whisky is the home of Diego Sandrin’s gargantuan collection of between 20-25,000 bottles on display. The best 1,000 are with Sandrin, away from the public eye.

The record for the smallest bottle goes to White Horse, who produced a bottle containing just 1.3 millilitres of whisky.

The record for the largest bottle of whisky goes to the distillers of Famous Grouse, who created 1.7-metre bottle containing 228 litres of whisky.

Kikori is a Japanese whisky made from 100 per cent rice.

You can earn an academic degree in distilling.

The pepper mash in Tabasco sauce is aged in Jack Daniel’s barrels before it is then made into the sauce distributed all over the world.

One of the oldest bottles of Scotch whisky, the Old Vatted Glenlivet 1862, was opened in 2017. Drops of the rare whisky were captured inside 50 Swiss watches, the most expensive of which cost more than £35,000.

For many whisky producers, the size and shape of the still is as important a factor as barley, yeast or water to the character of the spirit.

The Guinness World Record for the oldest bottle of whisky in the world belongs to the Glenavon Special Liqueur Whisky. Bottled between 1851 and 1858, it sold at auction for an astounding £14,850.

Glenfiddich means ‘valley of the deer’.

Canadian whisky was once known as ‘brown vodka’.

The Royal Brackla Distillery in Nairn, Scotland is situated in the Cawdor Estate, the home of the fictional Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth, in Shakespeare’s play.

In 1774, the regulated volume for the wash and liquor stills was increased to 480 and 120 gallons respectively, which was the first victory of the tax-paying producers over the home distillers.

Home distilling was banned in 1781.

The Wash Act of 1784 divided Scotland into two areas, Highlands and Lowlands with an imaginative line from Greenock to Dundee.

The Small Stills Act of 1816 abolished the distinction between the industries in the Highlands and the Lowlands. In addition the Act legalised stills holding 48 gallons and above, as well as a weaker wash. This Act, allowed the smaller producers to operate legally and increase the number of the legal distilleries from 36 in 1816 to 125 three years later.

The Excise Act of 1823 which gave a lot of incentives like tax-free warehousing and free export, multiplied the legal distilleries and reduced the illegal trade. By the end of 1825, the licensed distilleries under the new Act were doubled from 111 to 263.

The first license under the new law was obtained by Captain George Smith, the founder of The Glenlivet Distillery.

The Usher firm registered Usher’s Old Vatted Glenlivet as a trademark in 1879. Then, with John G Smith of The Glenlivet Distillery (owner of the single-word trademark ‘Glenlivet’), they attempted to establish exclusive rights to the name of this historic whisky region in connection with their brands.

In the UK, Smith went to the High Court of Justice in 1882 to demand the removal from the Register of Trademarks of other existing trade names that contained the word ‘Glenlivet’.

They were met with a furious legal counter-attack. They questioned Ushers’ right to use the word in the name of a product that was a blended Scotch and contained only a relatively small proportion of Glenlivet whisky: they pointed out that the whisky trade had long used the word to denote a whisky from the Glenlivet region – even Usher had done so before Smith’s Glenlivet distillery was founded.

The Smith-Usher gambit ended in failure. Using the word in addition to the names of their distilleries (e.g. Benrinnes Glenlivet and Macallan Glenlivet) was legalised.

During Prohibition (1920–33), Bill McCoy fell on hard times and took to rum running on his schooner Henry L. Marshall. As he prospered, he bought a bigger schooner, the Arethusa.

He is credited with inventing the "burlock" – a package holding six bottles jacketed in straw, three on the bottom, then two, then one, the whole sewed tightly in burlap. It was compact and easy to handle and stow.

Bill McCoy pioneered a method of packing liquor(burlock) and could store up to 5,000 cases on the Arethusa. The expression “The Real McCoy” was used by fellow bootleggers to describe unadulterated spirits, particularly Scotch, because of the pride McCoy took in maintaining the quality of the name-brand liquors he transported.

Placing the schooner under British registry to avoid being US jurisdiction, Bill renamed the vessel Tomoka (after the river that runs through his hometown Holly Hill).

When the Coast Guard discovered McCoy, he established the system of anchoring large ships off the coast in international waters and selling liquor to smaller ships that transferred it to the shore. McCoy also smuggled liquor and spirits from the French islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon located south of Newfoundland.

On November 23, 1923, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Seneca, had orders to capture Bill McCoy and the Tomoka, even if in international waters. When the Tomoka was boarded under cover of the Seneca's guns, he immediately set sail and ran away with the boarding party – one lieutenant, one bos'n and thirteen seamen – and only upon their pleas did he heave to and put them back on the Seneca. He surrendered after the Seneca had fired four-inch shells at him.

The Chivas Brothers company came into being only in 1857, when John Chivas joined his elder brother James in his grocery, wine shop and luxury goods emporium in Aberdeen.

Mysteries surround Loch Ardnahoe: no one is quite sure how deep it is, while others say there’s a ghost of a charging white steed that rises out of the Loch on a full moon.

Ardnahoe is the 9th Islay distillery.

Ardnahoe – which means “Height of the Hollow” in Scottish Gaelic and gives Ardnahoe Distillery its name, is situated on the North-East coast of Islay, equidistant between Caol Ila and Bunnahabhain Distilleries.

Aber Falls Distillery (Aberfall Distyllfa Whisgi)in Abergwyngregyn, Wales, launched its first 100% Welsh single malt whisky on 17 May 2021.

Their copper stills are appropriately named Golchi, meaning wash in English and Gwirod, meaning spirit.

Douglas Laing & Co, the family firm behind the “Remarkable Regional Malts” Scotch Whisky range, unleashed Timorous Beastie “Meet the Beast”, a limited edition of the sleekit dram to amplify the flavour experience of their Highland Malt brand end May 2021.

Offered at a natural cask strength of 54.9% and matured exclusively in ex-American Bourbon barrels, the spirit is said to be a “massive amplification” of the original.

Douglas Laing’s Remarkable Regional Malts, the Ultimate Distillation of Scotland’s Malt Whisky Regions, encompasses The Epicurean Lowland Malt Scotch Whisky, Timorous Beastie (Highlands), Scallywag (Speyside), The Gauldrons (Campbeltown), Rock Island (Islands) and Big Peat (Islay). Beyond its Blended Malts expertise, the award-winning Douglas Laing portfolio also includes Provenance, Premier Barrel, Old Particular, Xtra Old Particular and XOP Black, collectively known as the firm’s “Exceptional Single Casks”.

In 2019, Laphroaig released a new Scotch whisky, The Ian Hunter Story Book One: Unique Character. It was presented in a novel manner, in the form of a heavy tome that, after a few pages, revealed a neat slot with a bottle holding liquid 30 years old nestled therein.

It was also the first chapter of a series of rare and collectable aged whiskies that honour the legacy of Ian Hunter. He was the last of the Johnston family to own and manage the Laphroaig distillery, between 1908 and 1944.

15 such books are planned. Each release is to contain an aged Laphroaig, set into a crafted book that would document a part of Ian’s legacy. Every year, a new chapter would be told, uncovering the history behind Laphroaig and the characters who created it.

Indian Amrut Fusion is not the only fusion whisky. The Glover Fusion Whisky Ltd. was originally formed as a small enterprise- TBG & Co- with the aim of producing a Scotch whisky to raise awareness of entrepreneur Thomas Blake Glover’s role in shaping modern Japan and celebrate Scotland’s historical, economical, cultural and social links to Japan.

5 blended malts have been made with Scotch and Japanese single malts, two with India’s Amrut single malts and one each with Australia and Holland.

Although the profile of Caol Ila as a single malt has been enhanced in recent years, the main function of the distillery is still the production of malt whiskies for the Johnnie Walker blends. Among single malt whisky lovers, Caol Ila is known as a relatively clean peated whisky - but the whisky that is used for blends is actually UNPEATED.

Caol Ila is the largest distillery on Islay by far, producing roughly a quarter of all the malt whisky that is distilled on the isle of Islay. As such, Caol Ila's capacity dwarfs better known malt whisky brands like Longmorn, Glenfarclas and Laphroaig and Lagavulin.

The 'Classic Malts' range of Diageo used to contain only six different single malts (Cragganmore, Dalwinnie, Glenkinchie, Lagavulin, Oban & Talisker).

In 2005, Cardhu, Clynelish and Glen Elgin were added.

In 1826, Scotsman Robert Stein invented a basic column still. It is used to distill Irish whisky.

In 1830, the Irishman Aeneas Coffey, a former Inspector General of Excise, patented his improved column still. The efficiency of the technique and the smooth characteristics of the grain whisky have changed the drinking map of the world during the next centuries.

Around 1850, London based Andrew Usher & Co began to sell a blended whisky called "Old vatted Glenlivet whisky", which was a mixture of Glenlivet whisky with other malt whiskies. The idea came from Usher wife, Margaret Balmer who was a talented blender of drinks.

Due to the vine aphid called phylloxera, which had destroyed most of France's vineyards during the period 1868-1895, production of Cognac fell by more than two thirds and whisky consumption gain a massive boost.

The magic formula which helped the whisky to conquer the British elite and the world in the following years was the blending of the rougher malt whiskies with the softer grain whiskies and prolonging the maturation process.

The first companies which was the pioneers of this change were Andrew Usher & Co, Mackinlay's, Phipson's Black Dog, John Walker, John Haig, John Dewars, James Buchanan with Black & White and James L. Mackie with White Horse.

Some of the key players of the whisky industry nowadays used to be whisky dealers and wine merchants back in 19th century like Chivas Brothers with Chivas Regal and Matthew Gloag & Sons with Famous Grouse.

Johnnie Walker used captains of passenger ships as his sales agents.

In 1916, the British Government introduced measures to reduce the whisky production including the reduction of the regulated alcohol content for domestic sales from 43% to 40% and the increase of the minimum maturation period for at least 3 years.

In 1917, during World War I, malt whisky production was forced to shut down due to shortage in the supply of grains.

During the 1920s, the alcohol prohibition in the United States and the Great Depression led to decline of production and increase in illegal alcohol trading.

On December 5, 1933, president Roosevelt ended the alcohol prohibition with the legendary phrase: "What America needs now is a drink"!

In 1877, The Distillers Company (DCL), a company which played an important role in the evolution of the whisky industry was formed by a group of Scottish column still distillers. DCL is now part of Diageo.

In 1898, Pattison, Elder & Co, a blending company which had penetrated the whisky market for almost a decade with aggressive marketing and financing, filed bankruptcy. This fact created financial problems to a lot of distilleries which used to be their suppliers and created a crash in the whisky industry.

In 1917, during World War I, malt whisky production was forced to shut down due to shortage in the supply of grains.

During the 1920s, the alcohol prohibition in the United States and the Great Depression led to decline of production and increase in illegal alcohol trading.

Britain's involvement in World War II played a significant role in spreading the whisky in Europe, America and Asia.

The first new distillery built since 1900 was the Glen Keith Distillery in 1957, by Chivas Brothers.

In 1962, Grants decide to start selling the 8 Year Old Glenfiddich "straight malt" which was the pioneer for the rebranding of Single Malt Whisky.

In China, Scotch drinkers like to mix their scotch with green tea, in Japan with water and ice, in Spain and France with cola and in the UK, with a little bit of water.

Scotch whisky sells nearly 5 times more than regular whisky.

An urban legend in Scotland states that there are certain chemicals in whisky that only people that are genetically capable of discerning them can taste, and this usually tastes like a ‘burnt donkey/ass’.

In 1962, Grants decided to start selling the 8 Year Old Glenfiddich "straight malt" which was the pioneer for the re-branding of Single Malt Whisky.

In 1774, the regulated volume for the wash and liquor stills was increased to 480 and 120 gallons respectively, which was the first victory of the tax-paying producers over the home distillers. In 1781, home distilling was banned.

The Small Stills Act of 1816 abolished the distinction between the industries in the Highlands and the Lowlands. In addition the Act legalized stills holding 48 gallons and above, as well as a weaker wash. This Act, allowed the smaller producers to operate legally and increase the number of the legal distilleries from 36 in 1816 to 125 three years later.

The first license under the new law was obtained by Captain George Smith, the founder of The Glenlivet Distillery.

In 1826, Robert Stein invented a basic column still.

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to “Mind your own pints and quarts.” This is where we get the phrase: 'mind your P's and Q's'.

In 1740 Admiral Vernon of the British fleet decided to water down the navy's rum. The sailors weren't too pleased and called Admiral Vernon "Old Grog," after the woollen *grogram coats he wore. 'Grog' soon began to mean the watered down drink itself. When you were drunk on this grog, you were 'groggy', a word still in use today.

*Grogram : A coarse, often stiffened fabric made of silk, mohair, wool, or a blend of them.

A beer lover or enthusiast is called a cerevisaphile.

Collecting beer mats is called tegestology.

The oldest brewery in the United States is supposedly Yuengling in Pottsville, Pennsylvania - founded in 1829.

Isle of Jura Single Malt has brought out four expressions of its malt, each of which bear the unique symbols associated with the legend of its birth, and with a bit of the island’s history thrown in for good measure.

Origin 10, which sports the Celtic symbol for birth, beginnings, and the forces of nature is, quite literally, the whisky that started it all.

Next, Superstition is adorned with a silver Egyptian “ankh.” Pour the whisky with the ankh in the center of your palm to bring good fortune.

Prophecy, named after a three hundred year old Diurach prophecy, wears the symbol of an all- seeing eye.

Beer Ads on television started in the 1940s. One of the first cheeky / funny beer ads was Carling's: 'Hey Mabel--Black Label'. The ad ran for 20 years from 1951; at the end of the advert, the barmaid winked at the audience as she responded to: 'Hey Mabel--Black Label'.

There are only 12 Master Blenders of whisky in the entire world.

Four bottles of Johnnie Walker are consumed every second.

Unopened, a bottle of scotch can last more than 100 years.

2020 should see 124 malt and 4 grain distilleries in operation.

Pattison and Co., a whisky company of the 1890s spent heavily on advertising their brands of blended whisky like “The Doctor” and “The Gordon.” The latter featured Major General Charles Gordon, of Khartoum fame, in formal uniform on the label.

At one point, Pattison and Co. gave away 500 African grey parrots, which had been trained to shout out “buy Pattison whisky” and “Pattison whisky is the best” to their retail customers; the first example of in-store interactive advertising.

Between 1898 and 1924, 77 distillers went bust.

The Volstead Act (Prohibition Act) had broad exemptions for the use of ethanol or grain alcohol for “fuel, dye and other lawful industries and practices, such as religious rituals.” In addition, ten licenses were authorized for the production of “medicinal whiskey”, but only six companies applied for them. These were: Brown-Foreman, Glenmore (now owned by Sazerac), Schenley, Stitzel Distillery (predecessor of Stitzel-Weller and now both owned by Diageo), Frankfort Distilleries (now Four Roses), and American Medicinal Spirits (AMS which became National Distilleries then, eventually, part of Beam and now part of Suntory).

In 1927, records from the Ontario provincial government show that boats carrying a total of 3,388,016 gallons of “hard liquor” had left Windsor, Ontario for Detroit. In that year, US agents were able to seize only a paltry 148,211 gallons—roughly four percent of what was shipped.

A proof gallon is a gallon of liquid containing 50 percent alcohol by volume.

An aged female soothsayer cursed the parsimonious laird of the Isle of Jura distillery, Archibald Campbell, on eviction and prophesized that the last of the Campbell family to finally depart from the island would have only one eye and all of his earthly belongings would be carried in a cart pulled by a lone white horse. In 1938, Charles Campbell fell on hard times. Blind in one eye as a result of a World War I injury, he was seen walking his white horse and all his possessions to the pier, leaving Jura for good.

Is that ghostly old woman satisfied with the array of whisky now on the island? Locals say she hasn’t yet returned. However, if she ever does, a bottle of a 16 YO, the locals’ favourite, is kept hidden in a secret cave and it has her name written all over it.

Major James Grant was the first man in the Highlands to own a car and his Glen Grant was also the first distillery to have a light bulb illuminate its rooms.

Bruichladdich and Arran Bere Barley is an idiosyncratic barley variety that has survived in some of Scotland’s remotest outposts for up to 6,000 years, nearly became extinct 20 years ago, and is now undergoing a resurgence.

The distillation process, the key segment of whisky production was invented around four thousand years ago in the ancient civilizations of Babylon and Mesopotamia.

First detailed description of distillation came from ~100AD, when Greeks distilled sea water into drinking water.

There are over 5000 types of Single Malt Whisky.

A Quart is the original British measure of volume in their whisky bottles. This was equal to roughly 1.132 L, one fourth of one Imperial Gallon(~4.55L). Johnnie Walker's older whisky bottles are often found in Duty Free stores with a volume of 1.125L.

Whisky can exceptionally well withstand cold temperatures. Heroic Polar Explorers carried whisky on their journey to the South Pole, and whisky remained liquid even at -30 degrees Celsius.

Whisky can age only in wooden casks. In glass bottles it can survive for 100 years, but it will not change its flavour.

The colour of the whisky comes from oak casks (also around 60% of its flavour), and from a small amount of caramel colouring.

85% of the Single Malt Whiskies comes from Scotland.

Whisky and rum represented majority of drinks that were used on the ships during the famous “Golden Age of the Piracy”.

Five largest regional made whiskies are Scotch Whisky, Irish Whiskey, Indian Whisky, Kentucky Bourbon and Canadian Whisky.

To this day Irish and Scotts have disputes about who was first to make whisky.

It’s a common misconception that single malt whisky is the product of one cask. In fact, it is the product of a single distillery and may actually come from several casks therein, a blend of malts of that specific distillery.

The reason so many distilleries rely on local employees – often generations of families – is because it’s reckoned that such workforces produce crucially consistent styles.

World Whisky Day is on the third Saturday in May each year.

The distillation process, the key segment of whisky production, was invented around four thousand years ago in the ancient civilizations of Babylon and Mesopotamia.

First detailed description of distillation came from ~100AD, when Greeks distilled sea water into drinking water.

There are over 5000 types of Single Malt Whisky.

Moderate use of whisky can bring many benefits to the human metabolism. It can prevent stroke, dementia, heart attack, clotted arteries, increase good cholesterol and fight against cancer cells.

Whisky can exceptionally well withstand cold temperatures. Heroic Polar Explorers carried whisky on their journey to the South Pole, and whisky remained liquid even at -30 degrees Celsius.

Scotch whisky is mostly distilled twice, Irish whisky thrice.

Whisky can age only in wooden casks. In glass bottles it can survive for 100 years, but it will not change its flavour.

Colour of the whisky comes from oak casks (also around 60% of its flavour), and from a small amount of caramel colouring.

85% of the Single Malt Whiskies comes from Scotland.

Whisky and rum represented majority of drinks that were used on the ships during the famous “Golden Age of the Piracy”.

Five largest regional made whiskies are Scotch Whisky, Irish Whiskey, Indian Whisky, Kentucky Bourbon and Canadian Whisky.

To this day Irish and Scotts have disputes about who was first to make whisky.

The reason so many distilleries rely on local employees – often generations of families – is because it’s reckoned that such workforces produce crucially consistent styles.

A ‘Fifth’ is an American term for one fifth of one US Gallon, some 3780 ml, which works out to 755 ml.

Efforts began as early as the 1960’s to eliminate the confusing fractions brought about by the pint, quart, and US/Imperial gallon measurements and by the late 1970’s efforts were underway to convert liquor bottle sizes to the metric system. They managed in both the UK and the US, thank goodness.

The Great Gorbals Disaster 1906- one of the colossal washbacks in the Adelphi/ Ardnamurchin distillery owned by DCL collapsed, engulfing the neighbouring street in a tidal wave of alcohol and resulting in fatalities.

In 1993 Jamie Walker revived the Adelphi name as an independent bottler in order to explore the mysteries of malt whisky and to make a limited number of rare, well-aged and top quality malt whiskies available to the discerning whisky enthusiast. Charles Maclean is now Adelphi's "Chief Nose"

First Spirit produced at Ardnamurchan Distillery in 2014.

The history of distilling on the Ballindalloch Estate dates back to the 1820’s when a distillery was built at Delnashaugh, above the junction of the rivers Avon and Spey. Ballindalloch is a small & picturesque distillery in Speyside.

Dornoch distillery is a crowd funded project near the Dornoch Castle hotel.

Eden Mill became Scotland's first combined brewery and distillery when they began the production of Scotch whisky and gin in 2014.

By 2010 only Tamdhu still used Saladin boxes for malting, in which a lot of malt can be produced in one batch since the malt layer can be up to 1 metre high. Tamdhu produced the malt for Macallan, Glenrothes and other distilleries in the corporate group.

The malt from such maltings costs the distilleries up to 50% more than industrially produced malt from specialised large-scale maltings (e.g. Port Ellen).

Distilleries with their own maltings are: Balvenie, Bowmore, Glen Garioch, Glen Ord, Highland Park, Laphroaig, Speyburn, Kilchoman, Laphroaig, Benriach and Springbank.

Scotland's oldest continuously operating distillery is Strathisla Distillery. It is the home of the Chivas blended whisky brand and it used to be called Miltown Distillery until 1870.

The Athenaeum Hotel in London sells a whisky called “The Athenaeum Speyside Blended Malt Scotch Whisky”. The label mentions that the whisky also contains Highland whisky. This is indefensible, but their argument is that The Macallan is geographically as Speyside as you can get, but the distillery uses “Highland” on the label.

In America, “Whiskey” is the most common spelling, but well-known brands like Maker’s Mark or George Dickel use the “whisky” spelling. The official US regulations for distilled spirits use “whisky” throughout.

A new whisky crisis looms – Scotch distillers are running out of names. The Glenlivet Founder’s Reserve NAS was introduced to celebrate 1 million sold cases in the past 12 months. But there is already a Founder’s Reserve by Glen Garioch on the market. Astonishingly, Glenlivet had already launched a whisky named Founder’s Reserve in 2011 to commemorate their distillery expansion.

Glenlivet 12 has been discontinued in a number of markets. It will be replaced by the recently introduced Founder’s Reserve.

Diageo has put their plans for certain distillery expansions on hold, including Teaninich, Mortlach and Clynelish.

Only Glenfiddich, Springbank and Bruichladdich have their own bottling plants. All other distilleries ship their casks to the big bottlers in Glasgow, Edinburgh or Perth.

Usually between 30,000 and 60,000 bottles of the standard single malt whiskies are bottled in one batch, depending on the capacity of the freight vehicle. Sales aren’t so high yet that an automated bottling line for just one single malt whisky would be profitable. This remains reserved for the big blended whiskies.

Pure alcohol tastes like alcohol. A single malt whisky gets its taste from the heavier oils and fats and the lighter esters and other flavour carriers from the wash. The further you distill a whisky, the more it will lose its individual character.

During distillation, the unique shape of the pot stills is the main contributing factor to the taste of a whisky.

The last runnings of the distillation, called feints, are led back into the wash still.

Sizes of casks for maturation:

1 Quarter cask = 33 us. gal. (125 Litres)
1 Barrel = 41.7 us. gal. (158 Litres)
1 ASB = American standard barrel = 52.8 us. gal. (200 Litres)
1 Hogshead = 66 us. gal. (250 Litres)
1 Butt = 132 us. gal. (500 Litres)
Puncheons (or Pungeons) and pipes 158.5 – 184.9 us. gal.: (600 – 700 litres) are used only rarely.

Perthshire's famous seven small-scale farm distilleries were:

Ballechin Distillery between 1810 and 1927
Blair Athol, originally Aldour
Glenturret, originally Hosh
Auchnagie
Aberfeldy
Deanston
Edradour

All the 750,000 litres of spirit produced by Aberargie is likely to be destined for single malt sales, but in 2014, Morrison & Mackay resurrected the Old Perth Scotch Blended Malt Brand.

With just a 1,000-litre wash still and a 500-litre spirit still, both of the alembic style, Strathearn harks back to the small-scale, farm-based distilleries of yesteryear. Its limited single malt releases to date have been snapped up eagerly by consumers and collectors alike.

Glenfiddich 50 YO: The 50 year-old Glenfiddich was created from two separate casks, dating back to 1955, which were married for half a year before being bottled. Only 500 bottles were produced, and only 50 bottles are being released per year, over a 10 year period.

Long gone, Ballechin’s neighbour distillery Edradour began issuing a Whisky named "Ballechin" in their honour.

Ballechin failed because a water dispute cutoff their supply of spring water.

Cragganmore means "large rock" in Gaelic.

Cragganmore still uses the rather rare worm tubs to cool their Whisky after distillation.

In November 1972, Glen Garioch released its first single malt in 180 years. Previously the Whisky was used in blends like VAT 69, Grant's Standfast, Bell's and Drambuie liqueur. It is pronounced Glen Geery.

In 1982, Glen Garioch became the first distillery ever to use North Sea gas for heating.

The Glen Garioch 46YO is the oldest official bottle from the distillery.

Edradour was originally called Glenforres when it was built in 1825.

Exports of Scotch whisky reached a record level – well over £4.36bn in 2017.

More than £25 million was spent on Scotch whisky in UK auctions alone during 2017, and that figure is sure to reach even greater heights when full 2018 numbers are released.

60-year-old Macallan featuring labels designed by artists Peter Blake and Valerio Adami set auction records – but they were all capped by the £1.2m spent in November on a bottle hand-painted by Irish artist Michael Dillon.

In 2017, a year littered with auction records and with high-end whisky release prices reaching ever more stratospheric heights, it was refreshing to see one single malt – Craigellachie, with its ‘free’ 51-year-old release in October – taking a more philanthropic attitude.

Even more distilleries are set to open, not to mention plans to expand production at a number of established facilities, such as LVMH’s Ardbeg, Glenmorangie and relative newcomer Eden Mill.

Among the highlights, there was news of a ‘Whisky Galore’ distillery for South Uist and Gordon & MacPhail’s new venture at Craggan on Speyside.

There are plans to resurrect whisky-making at Rosebank and Brora (with Port Ellen to follow), and a project to bring Dallas Dhu back into production.

On the flipside, the last of Glenugie’s remaining warehouse buildings was earmarked for demolition.

The millions being invested in whisky aren’t just about distillation, however: as record numbers of tourists flock to visitor centres and tours, Diageo announced plans to spend £150m on upgrading its facilities, including a new Johnnie Walker attraction in Edinburgh and ambitious plans for distilleries including Caol Ila and Glenkinchie.

Despite becoming the number one Scotch whisky magazine online in the world with 2.5 million users, Scotchwhisky.com is closing down due lack of finance.

In June 1967 a parcel of Sherry casks was filled with Laphroaig new make spirit and sold to Cadenhead. One was bottled at 15 years old, and ended up being labelled and imported by one Silvano S Samaroli from Italy. These were recently auctioned at £61,000 per bottle.

Samaroli also produced the ‘Flowers’ series, a small batch of single malts all released at 46% ABV showcasing uncommon distilleries such as Coleburn and Teaninich.

Adelphi launched a Sherried, 13-year-old Benrinnes; a 10-year-old Bunnahabhain; a bizarre nine-year-old Caol Ila and a blended malt comprising whisky from unnamed Dufftown distilleries.

Scotch whisky makers are facing the prospect of paying a 25% tariff on exports of single malt to the US from 18 Oct 2019.

According to the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA), single malt represents more than half the total value of UK products on the tariff list, at more than US $420m.

The EU had imposed a 25% tariff on imports of US whiskey earlier, leading to a drop in imports of US whiskey by 21%.

Blended Scotch is not (yet) subject to tariffs; the US is responsible for 22% of global Blended Scotch whisky imports by value, and 11% by volume.

Amidst continued uncertainty over the timing, nature and impact of Brexit, the last thing Scotch whisky distillers need is a blow to the industry’s most lucrative export destination.

Whyte & Mackay is to give away 1,500 bottles of its Whyte & Mackay Rare 50 Year Old 44.6% ABV Blended Scotch, created to mark the company’s 175th anniversary, as part of a promotional competition. This is open to residents of only GB, Scotland & Wales only. NI is excluded.

Ardbeg has revived on 01 Oct 2019 its peatiest expression, Ardbeg Supernova, four years after the fourth and ‘final’ release of the cult whisky for sale to members of the Ardbeg Committee.

Royal Brackla is to relaunch its core range of whiskies next year with new 12-, 18- and 21-year-old single malts, each finished in different ex-Sherry casks. These will be at 46% ABV as against 40% the last time.

The Tobermory distillery is the only distillery on the island of Mull, due north of Islay and the isle of Jura, and was initially named Ledaig.

The brand name “Tobermory” is used for all their unpeated malt whisky, while the peated whisky (35 ppm) is sold as “Ledaig.”

The malt whisky produced on Mull is first shipped to the Deanston distillery on the mainland for filling into casks and then transported onward to the Bunnahabhain Distillery on Islay for maturation.

Tobermory is a distillery that is often affected by drought, which dries up its water source, as happened in both 2012 and 2013. The distillery shuts down for up to two months in a drought-affected year.

Highland Park is one of the few distilleries to malt its own barley, using locally cut peat. Part of its flavour comes from the heather used on the peat fire to help dry the malt, which imparts a delicate touch, resulting in the unique taste of all Highland Park expressions with no semblance with Islay malts.

In 1984, Highland Park was the only whisky ever to have scored a rating of 100 percent by the regular tasting team of The Scotsman. It has received unparalleled encomiums.

Noted whisky critic Michael Jackson called Highland Park, “The greatest all-rounder in the world of malt whisky.”

The Tobermory, Ledaig, Black Bottle, Bunnahabhain, and Deanston brands are now all owned by Burn Stewart. They have upgraded the range and raised the ABV to 46.3%. They have also developed new glass bottles and now advertise that they no longer chill-filter their brands.

The Arran markets whiskies ‘finished’ in Marsala and Moscatel de Seutbal casks.

The original Jura distillery of 1810, the only one on Jura Island, was closed in 1918 and rebuilt in 1963 by whisky blender and merchant Charles Mackinlay & Co.

Indian business tycoon Vijay Mallya bought Whyte & Mackay in May 2007 for USD 1.2 billion. This put the Dalmore, Fettercairn, Isle of Jura and Tamnavulin distilleries under Indian control.

Ben Nevis produces 12 different varieties of blended whisky, the most famous being Long John; named after the nickname of the first owner John McDonald.

Long John has now been bought by Pernot Ricard. Its reviews are excellent.

The Clynelish distillery uses water piped down from Clynemilton Burn.

The primary single malts in Chivas Regal are Strathisla, Braeval and Allt-a-Bhainne. The Glenlivet 12 YO also features in the mix.

One malt whisky from Springbank became a legend: it was matured in ex-rum casks from the Caribbean and took on a green colour.

The Angel’s Share fluid level decreases by 2% each year. Of this, the alcohol content of the whisky is 0.2% to 0.6%.

Only Glenfiddich, Springbank and Bruichladdich have their own bottling plants. All other distilleries ship their casks to the big bottlers in Glasgow, Edinburgh or Perth.

Usually between 30,000 and 60,000 bottles of the standard single malt whiskies are bottled in one batch.

Independent bottlers such as Gordon & MacPhail or Douglas Laing buy new make from the distilleries and then mature it on their own. They generally bottle the whisky straight from the cask. Each of these bottles contains a one-of-a-kind single malt whisky.

These single malt whiskies taste differently from year to year, or even from cask to cask. Also the alcohol content can vary greatly. Sometimes it’s at cask strength or reduced to 46%, 43% or 40%.

Independent bottlers rarely chill-filter their whiskies.

Since 18 October 2019, a 25% tariff has been implemented on various goods when exported from the EU to the US. Wine and several spirits including single malt whisky, are affected.

Over the next 12 months, exports of Scotch single malt are expected to decline by 20% and will become less competitive in the US market.

This tariff was lifted soon after Trump was beaten by Joe Biden in the Presidential Elections in the USA in 2020.

The US imported Scotch whisky worth £1 billion in 2018. 33% of the imported Scotch whisky was single malt.

Another of Speyside’s workhorses, Allt-a-Bhainne was one of the first distilleries designed to be operated by one person.

Allt-a-Bhainne is only very occasionally seen as a single malt bottling, that too as independent bottling.

Allt-á-Bhainne, (pronounced Ollt-err-VANE) founded in 1975 by Chivas Brothers Ltd. The unusual name is derived from the Gaelic, ‘Allt a’bhainne’ meaning ‘burn of milk’.

The brand is used in the Chivas Regal, Passport and 100 Pipers blended scotch whiskies.

Today there are no original bottlings of Allt-A-Bhainne.

The Allt-A-Bhainne distillery is merely the production stage for the distillation.

There have never been any malting floors at Allt-A-Bhainne distillery.

The distillery has pagoda shaped kiln tops, but they have never served any function.

The malt from the Knockdhu distillery was originally re-named an Cnoc in 1993 to avoid confusion with Knockando, but the name only took hold after new owners Inver House, who bought the distillery in 2001, had relaunched the an Cnoc brand in 2003.

Knockdhu itself was founded in 1894 after the discovery of several springs on the nearby Knock hill. The knock hill is known to locals as anCnoc, from the Gaelic for black hill.

Ailsa Bay was built within Girvan grain distillery in 2007 to produce malt whisky for William Grant's range of blends.

One heavily peated NAS single malt is on offer. It is definitely an eight YO +

Aultmore distillery was completed in 1896, and was powered by a water wheel until 1898 when a steam engine was fitted.

This engine was in almost continuous use for nearly 70 years,and was only decommissioned in 1969 when electricity was finally introduced to the distillery.

Aultmore is one of the many victims of the infamous Pattison crash.

The Foggie Moss conceals Aultmore whisky’s water source & filters it through gorse & heather for increased purity.

The vast majority of the Aultmore single malt goes into blends. The only official bottling at present is a 12 year-old expression released in 2004.

In late 2014 Bacardi chose Aultmore as one of the five distilleries to be part of their The Last Great Malts-campaign.

GlenDronach is a lot older than the label says.

The distillery was closed from 1996 until 2001, and that gap of six years forces GlenDronach to use older whisky than necessary. It's 12 YO of 2013 is mostly 18 YO.

There is a worry that in a couple of years, when they can finally release whiskies with accurate age statements, they may not be able to produce the same top quality as they do now.

Hazelburn distillery, established in 1825, closed down in 1930. Nowadays the distillery lives on through the namesake triple-distilled spirit produced by Springbank.

Springbank has a capacity of 750,000 liters of alcohol per annum. About ten percent is dedicated to Hazelburn.

20% of the Dornoch Firth land area is covered by Scotland's 'National Scenic Areas (NSA)' - areas which are considered nationally important for their scenic quality.

Auchentoshan, meaning `Corner of the field’ in Gaelic, produces a delicate, smooth and light single Malt Whisky the subtle aroma and flavour of which is achieved by Triple Distillation.

Auchentoshan is one of the last active distilleries in the Lowlands.

Edradour returned to the Glenforres name as Glenforres-Glenlivet after being acquired by William Whiteley company in the 1920s to produce malt fortheir King's Ransom blend. It is now back to Edradour.

Almost all of Balmenach's sherry-matured malt goes to blends, including Johnnie Walker. Diageo had released some Balmenach as part of their Flora & Fauna range, but this was discontinued. There have been occasional independent bottlings.

Balmenach distillery is nestled at the bottom of the Haughs of Cromdale in the Spey valley, where, on 30 April 1690, an army of Jacobite soldiers was ambushed by dragoon guards during their sleep. Many were slain and the remaining fled nearly naked, effectively ended the Jacobite rising in the Highlands.

In the early 1800 three brothers crossed these hills from Tomintoul and set up a farm. One of them was a James McGregor who also set up an illicit still on the site. Shortly after the licensing act was introduced James McGregor obtained a license for his distillery formally establishing it in 1824.

As is predominant of Inver House Distillers, traditional machinery and methods are used to this day.

Balmenach uses a cast iron mash tun mashing slightly more than 8 tonnes every 7.5 hours. The wash is fermented in six Douglas Fir washbacks for a minimum of 50 hours before it is sent to the stillhouse for distillation.

The first Banff was built in Inverboyndie, Speyside in 1824 by James Mckilligan & Co.and changed hands three times before closing in 1862 when with James Simpson & Son, who moved site close by and restarted in 1863.

This new distillery started well, but much of the equipment and distillery buildings were destroyed by a fire in 1877. However, the warehouses and malting floor survived, and the distillery was up and running again only six months later.

Due to the prevailing poor economic climate pre and during WW II, the distillery was closed down by its owners, with only the warehouses being used to mature stock. It was still closed in 1941 when a lone German bomber took out warehouse No. 12.

Hundreds of barrels of whisky ignited and contents were distributed into the local fields, rivers and water courses, where several ducks were reported to have died from alcohol poisoning.

Local cows were unable to be milked for several days afterwards as they were unable to stand up. A fireman who saved some whisky in his helmet during the rescue operation and tried to distribute it among his colleagues was taken to court for petty pilfering.

One famous release from Bowmore is the Black Bowmore series: a collection of five sherry cask matured single malts that are almost black in colour and have become some of the most coveted whiskies ever released.

The first distillery on Islay to receive a licence, Bowmore was officially founded in 1779. It is likely that the founder, David Simpson, had been distilling in Bowmore since shortly after his arrival on Islay in 1766.

The distillery now known as Brora started life in 1819 when it was founded by the Marquis of Stafford, later known as the Duke of Sutherland.

This notorious character is more famous in Scotland for his part in the Highland Clearances, when he evicted around 15,000 crofters from his land in order to farm sheep.

The Marquis started the distillery to provide a market for his barley and to put the local moonshiners out of business.

The distillery was originally called Clynelish.

The malt produced at Clynelish was sold only to private customers and not to any blender at all.

After WW II, demand from blenders for Clynelish malt was extremely high, so to increase capacity, new owners DCL built another distillery adjacent to the existing one in 1967-68 and called that also Clynelish to cash in on that name.

The original distillery ran in tandem with the new distillery under the names of Clynelish A and Clynelish B.

This was not acceptable to the Customs Authorities or the SWA.

The original distillery was closed down in 1969 and then reopened bearing the name Brora. It then operated intermittently, producing heavily peated (around 40ppm) whisky for blending purposes.

In 1983, Brora shut down fore good, though existing barrels are released as official bottlings every now and then at astounding prices.

James Buchanan formed his own whisky company in 1884 after five years with blender Charles Mackinlay & Co. His flagship whisky was The Buchanan Blend, a light, smooth unpeated expression designed specifically to appeal to the English palate.

The expression, which initially incorporated Dalwhinnie, Clynelish and Glendullan malts, was named the Buchanan Blend and became an instant hit in London.

It was picked up by the Members Bar at the House of Commons in London. Buchanan renamed the blend Buchanan’s House of Commons Finest Old Highland whisky, and presented it in a dark glass bottle with a striking white label.

Before long, drinkers began ordering ‘that Black & White whisky’, and in 1902 the name was officially changed again to Black and White.

The brand was exported across the world, and in 1907, it was being ordered by the emperor of Japan.

By 1909, it had become the most popular blend in England.

While under the auspices of the DCL during the 1920s, the Black & White terriers began featuring more heavily in the brand’s advertising, quickly becoming iconic ambassadors for Buchanan’s flagship blend.

In 2013 the brand was given a contemporary makeover, and the terriers made the move onto the bottle’s label for the first time.

It is the fastest rising standard Blended Scotch over the last decade.

Bunnahabhain distillery was built in 1881. Its name comes from the Gaelic, Bunnahabhain (Bu-na-ha-venn), meaning ‘mouth of the river’, a reference to the Margadale, the river supplying water to the distillery.

These waters do not run through peat beds as at other distilleries on the Island. Most Bunnahabhain whiskies are very lightly peated, if at all, at around 02 ppm. Special NAS/12 YO peated whiskies are also produced here.

Abhainn Dearg Distillery (pronounced Aveen Jarræk), or Red River in English, on the Isle of Lewis is the first legal whisky distillery in the Outer Hebrides in almost two hundred years.

The well known flagship whiskies Hibiki 17 and Hakushu 12 are slated to be discontinued by parent company Suntory.

The central problem with the Japanese whisky industry: Supply is not meeting demand.

In the Highball cocktail, Kakubin was the whisky of choice. Yamazaki and Hakushu stocks were earmarked for Kakubin, putting pressure on single malts, which unfortunately couldn’t cope with demand.

Japanese drinkers like mixing their whisky with soda water.

A canned version of Suntory's highball also made its way into supermarkets and homes, sparking a new wave of consumer demand which pushed distillery stocks to their limit.

A 2014 TV show created an explosion in domestic sales. TV show Massan was an enormous hit. It tells the love story between two characters strongly based on one of Japanese whisky's founders, Masataka Taketsuru of Nikka, and Rita Cowan, considered the "mother of Japanese whisky."

Japanese whiskies may contain non-Japanese whisky - and it's 100% legal.

Currently 27 Japanese firms are importing bulk Scotch. SWA figures reveal that in the past five years there has been a four-fold increase in bulk shipments to Japan. In 2017, bulk blended malt exports rose to 1.4 million litres (+17% YOY), while bulk grain shipments reached 1.7m litres.

Some of the above may be destined for low-level blends, some however, seems destined to reappear on the world market as ‘Japanese’ whisky.

Ben Nevis distillery, owned by Nikka, ships a lot of whisky to Japan that's then used in Japanese blends.

While Japan was preoccupied with Scotch single malts, the UK, other parts of Asia and Europe were developing a penchant for Japanese whisky.

A total of 14 products were delisted in all markets and comprised all single malt Yoichi and Miyagikyo whiskies, the Tsuru 17 Years Old ceramic bottle, Tsuru 17 Years Old glass decanter, G&G White, Black Nikka 8 Year Old and Malt Club.

Irish pot stills were large pieces of sheet metal copper riveted together. They were mostly fired by coal. Cleaning them was a pain.

There was a separate room below the pot stills used to fire the pot.

The workers had a bell and a string to communicate with the stillman above in this very loud and busy environment.

The big stills of the distilleries needed cooling after the lyne arm. This could be either done by a steady flow of cold water or by providing a large enough heat sink in the form of a big tub.

Bushmills and New Midleton use triple distillation.

Irish whiskey, mainly grain and blended whiskey, is also produced on column stills. High quality Malt whiskey is still produced on pot stills only.

A single malt Scotch Whisky gets its taste from the heavier oils and fats and the lighter esters and other flavour carriers from the wash.

The more you distill a whisky, the more it loses its individual character.

During distillation, the unique shape of the pot stills is the main contributing factor to the taste of a whisky.

A long and slim shape produces soft new make (e.g. Glenmorangie), while a short, squat shape produces strong, intense flavours (e.g. Lagavulin).

The intensity of the heating is also important for the taste. If you heat too vigorously, many accompanying substances and fusel oils will get into the whisky, which will not be as smooth had it been distilled slowly.

The wash stills usually have a capacity of 20,000 to 30,000 litres, while the spirit stills generally 2/3s that volume.

Pot stills are replaced after 15 to 25 years, by when the thickness of the wall of the copper pot decreases to 4 to 5 mm.

The final exiting new make is run through a case usually made from glass and polished brass, the spirit and sample safe.

The stillman checks the quality and runs the spirit back into the still or into the spirit receiver using valves and levers. This is done only by visual inspection and instruments. A stillman cannot taste the spirit!

Foreshots take about 30 minutes to run through. The middle cut is then extracted for about 3 hours. The last run of the distillation, called feints, is led back into the spirit still.

Feints contain higher concentrations of propanol, isopropanol and fusel oils.

Feints contain the fusel oils responsible for headaches. Since the feints are cut off rather early, people usually don’t get headaches after enjoying single malt whisky.

Many more tidbits and fun facts are located here (tidbits) and here (fun facts). Or you could just scroll down to those posts.

The success of Johnnie Walker White Walker and the Game of Thrones malts boosted sales for Diageo, Scotland’s largest distiller, last year.

In its 2018/19 end of year financial results, Diageo claimed the special editions boosted sales for its Scotch brands, with Johnnie Walker up 7%, and its single malts up 12%.

Diageo’s entire Scotch whisky portfolio, which accounts for a quarter of its income and also includes the J&B, Buchanan’s and Old Parr blends, saw sales increase by 6% during the year.

The group claimed that the launch of Johnnie Walker White Walker in North America, where sales of the brand increased 6%, ‘recruited new consumers in Scotch’, while ‘Asia Pacific, North America and Europe benefitted from the launch of the Game of Thrones Single Malt Scotch Whisky Collection’.

However the launches failed to offset a continued decline for Scotch whisky in Europe, where sales of Diageo’s blended Scotch J&B fell by 10%.

Johnnie Walker A Song of Ice and A Song of Fire are two limited edition blends inspired by mystical beasts in the show: the Direwolves that served the House of Stark, and the dragons commanded by Daenerys Targaryen, the ‘Mother of Dragons’.

In June 1967 a parcel of Sherry casks was filled with Laphroaig new make spirit. No one present realised that it would eventually command a price of £61,000 for a single bottle at auction.

Independent bottler William Cadenhead bottled one, at 15 years and ended up being labelled and imported by one Silvano S Samaroli from Italy.

Silvano Samaroli, who passed away in February 2018, had also signed the bottle, making the item a ‘one of a kind whisky collectable’.

Another Samaroli bottling, a Bowmore 1966 Bouquet, sold for £51,611.

Sotheby’s announced it will present “The Ultimate Whisky Collection” on September 27, 2019 in what it is calling “the most valuable collection of whisky ever to be sold at auction.”The collection is expected to fetch about £4 million.

The auction is led by The Macallan 1926 from Cask #263 called “The Holy Grail of Whisky” at an estimated £350,000 to 450,000. The bottle actually set a new world record after fetching £1.5 million (US$1.9m) at the auction.

The Ultimate Whisky Collection comprises what is undoubtedly the most comprehensive catalogue of whisky ever to be offered by a single owner in a single auction.

Cask #263 yielded only 40 bottles and The Macallan commissioned two leading pop artists, Valerio Adami and Peter Blake, to design the labels for just 24 bottles, equally split between the pair.

Two more bottles were sold individually and given private labels, one of which was hand-painted by Dillon.

The remaining 14 bottles were adorned with a Fine & Rare label and are the oldest in the Fine & Rare series by age and vintage.

A bottle of The Macallan Valerio Adami 1926 60-year-old Scotch whisky once held the world record for most expensive whisky sold at auction after fetching £848,750 (US$1.1m) at a Bonhams sale in Edinburgh last year.

Family-owned spirits producer William Grant & Sons has launched three “experimental” whiskies from its Kininvie distillery, including a single malt, single grain and blended Scotch, at ABVs of 46,46.2 & 42.8% respectively.

The three whiskies are available to purchase online in the UK and in France. Each whisky carries an RRP of £35 (US$43).

Independent whisky bottler Douglas Laing & Co has moved into distilling with the acquisition of Perthshire-based single malt Scotch producer Strathearn Distillery.

Highland single malt whisky distillery Strathearn began production in 2013 and is a “pioneer of the craft distilling scene”. The site, which also produces Scottish gin and rum, encompasses distillation, warehouses and bottling.

The acquisition comes as Douglas Laing progresses with the build of its £10.7 million (US$14m) distillery in Glasgow. Clutha Distillery’s signature whisky, which will bear the same name, will be a “high-end single malt with a heavy Sherry influence”.

Douglas Laing & Co has reported double-digit growth for a fifth consecutive year.

Established in 1948, Douglas Laing’s Scotch whisky portfolio includes brands such as Xtra Old Particular (XOP), Old Particular, Timorous Beastie, Scallywag, Rock Oyster, Big Peat and The King of Scots.

Lowland distillery Daftmill is side-stepping ‘bottle flippers’ by offering its 2008 vintage single cask expression by the dram in select Scottish bars.

Berry Bros & Rudd and Daftmill have teamed up to sell Daftmill Single Cask 2008 #68 in 25ml measures at £10 (US$13). Bottles will not be available to buy.

Described as a first for the industry, the expression will only be available to buy at venues operated by Scottish chain The Independent Whisky Bars of Scotland.

Fifteen alcohol trade groups have sent a letter to the US administration and European Commission calling for an urgent end to 25% tariffs on EU goods, including single malt Scotch, which could result in the loss of 8,000 jobs.

Edrington-owned Scotch brand Highland Park has brought together three master whisky makers to collaborate on single malt release Triskelion.

Edrington has launched a refreshed packaging design for its Smoky Black expression, which champions the black grouse. A new ad for Smoky Black in the UK features a grouse as it takes a midnight stroll in the mountains. In the clip, a full moon is revealed upon which the grouse is transformed into a “darker and smokier feathered version”.

Ian Macleod Distillers’ Smokehead Islay Scotch brand would make a macabre addition to any Halloween party.

Drams from Glenury Royal are rare, but can be found, while bottlings from the now demolished distillery come under the Garron and Downie brands.

Elegant, slightly oily and fragrant, think Oolong tea with a little smoke, Glenury Royal is a lesser spotted malt, though occasionally bottles do appear from independent bottlers. Two releases under the Diageo Rare Malts range showed tropical fruit characters.

Even rarer are the distillery’s own bottlings which came out under the names Garron and Downie. The ‘Royal’ suffix was added in its earliest incarnation, thanks to then owner Captain William Barclay being a personal friend of King William IV.

William Grant & Sons have changed the appearance of its standard Glenfiddich range. Glenfiddich 12 and Glenfiddich 15 are the first that to be introduced in a new design. Glenfiddich 18 is to follow next year (2020).

The Glenfiddich logo, a golden stag, is now printed directly on the glass. It is embedded in a "V", cut in the shape of the glass, standing for Valley of the Deer. The typical triangular bottle shape of the Glenfiddich Single Malt is preserved, though it is a bit more rounded; the bottle looks a little slimmer with more distinctly cut shoulders.

Glenfiddich’s packaging and bottles have changed a great deal over the years. But this is hardly surprising. As the founder of the single malt category, Glenfiddich has always been at the forefront of development and has never been scared to make bold, eye-catching changes.

The new 12-year-old Glenfiddich is called "Our Original Twelve", the new 15-year-old "Our Solera Fifteen". The company hasn’t given information on the re-design of the 18-year-old Small Batch Glenfiddich yet.

The Highland Park Valfather completes the 2017 Viking Legend trilogy, along with the Highland Park Valkyrie and the Highland Park Valknut. This third and final Viking Legend edition focusses on the Norse godfather Odin himself and at 47% ABV, Valfather presents the highest alcohol content of the trio.

For the Viking Legend trilogy single malts, a larger proportion of heavily peated malt was used than usual. And among the whiskies of the Viking Legend series, Valfather is the smokiest, according to Highland Park.

The Talisker Bodega 41 Years is the oldest official single malt ever released by the distillery on the Scottish Isle of Skye.

The Talisker Bodega 40 Year Old was launched last year, matured in Amontillado sherry casks, the Talisker Bodega 41 Years in Manzanilla sherry casks. All sherry casks came from the famous sherry producer Delgado Zuleta, one of the oldest bodegas in the Marco de Jerez region.

New design for The Glenlivet: The Scottish single malt whisky is more modern, fresher and younger.

All editions of the standard range will appear in clear glass bottles in the future, so that we have to bid goodbye to the classic green of Glenlivet 12 Year Old.

Each Glenlivet gets its own colour.

Each edition got a special colour code, which is reflected both in the bottle capsule, a part of the bottle label and the colour of the bottle box. Fans of the Glenlivet 12 Year Old have been given the concession to retain the green, but it is not quite the common bottle green, but a fresher, slightly lighter shade.

A new and eye-catching element on the labels and packaging is an imprinted emblem showing Glenlivet founder George Smith.

For the Glenlivet Founders Reserve, it is colour-fitted, for the other three bottlings it is printed in gold.

In 2004, the Glengyle Distillery in Campbeltown restarted producing Single Malts.

The primary product of the distillery was the 12-year-old slightly smoky Kilkerran.

Under the "Peat in Progress" portfolio, Glengyle produced heavily peated Kilkerran bottles at 60.9% ABV, no E150A colour and without chill-filtration.

The release of a new Kilkerran Cask Strength 8 Years has been announced recently, bottled at 57.1% ABV and fully matured in re-charred Oloroso sherry casks.

Douglas Laing has released a Caol Ila 8yo 2010 bottling as part of the Old Particular Elements Collection.

A British distillery, the Cooper King Distillery opened in Yorkshire on 11 June 2018.

The distillery uses 100% green energy and the whisky will be based only on local barley. The malt for the Cooper King Single Malt Whisky will be produced at Warminster Maltings as a traditional floor malting.

Robert Louis Stevenson defined Talisker in 1880 as: “The King o’drinks as I conceive it.”

Hugh MacAskill arrived on Skye from the smaller island of Eigg in 1825. After a survey, he asked his brother Kenneth to join him and together, they built Talisker Distillery in 1830 at Carbost on the shore of Loch Harport, despite opposition from the local clergy.

Alexander Grigor Allan and Roderick Kemp bought shares in the distillery in 1880, In 1892, Roderick Kemp sold his share of Talisker, using the money to buy Macallan.

In 1898, Allan merged with Thomas MacKenzie to form Dailuiane-Talisker Distillery Co. Ltd. Talisker was one of the best-selling single malt whiskies in the country.

In 1916, the death of Thomas MacKenzie gave John Walker & Sons and John Dewar & Sons the chance to form a consortium and take over.

Initially triple distilled, Talisker reverted to double distillation in 1928.

In 1960, a fire destroyed the stillhouse. The five stills lost in the fire were replaced by replicas still heated by coal in two years. In 1987, the distillery changed over to steam heating.

The malt is peated to a phenol level of approximately 18–22 parts per million (ppm), which is a medium peating level.

Talisker House & Pershal More

The water used for production of Talisker Malts, from Cnoc nan Speireag (Hawk Hill), flows over peat which adds additional complexity to the whisky.

In the Octave series, Independent Bottler Duncan Taylor has used Octave barrels, which, at 50 litres are only a fraction of the size of common barrels. As a result, the whisky has more contact with the barrel surface and has matured more intensely.

This Royal Brackla was bottled exclusively for Whisky.de. This bottling was limited to 108 bottles! The ripening in the Octave barrel took five months.

For Taliskravaganza 2014, Retailer K&L Wines featured the exclusive Talisker "The Speakeasy" 5 year old single cask single malt at 45.8% ABV.

Apparently The Laing Whisky Company was permitted by Diageo to bottle both a 5 year old under their own Premier Barrel label and this 5 year old single-retailer exclusive.

Kilchoman has produced 3-6 year old single malts that were ready for the market as ultra-young malts. Whatever the secret is, the Kilchomans seem more rounded and mature than their age.

The Maltman Linkwood 11 years old 2007 is a younger Speyside single malt from the Linkwood distillery bottled by the independent bottler The Maltman (Meadowside Blending). Matured in a bourbon cask, the limited single cask release of 302 bottles was bottled in March 2019 at natural cask strength of 52.1% ABV, non chill filtered and with no added colour.

Finlaggan single malt is named after Finlaggan Castle, the seat of the feudal Lord of the Isles in the loch of the same name in northern Islay. Finlaggan is a mystery malt and the identity of the producing distillery is jealously guarded by the brand owners, The Vintage Malt Whisky Company.

Glen Albyn was founded in Inverness in 1846 by James Sutherland, the Mayor. Work was completed and the license awarded in 1847, but the distillery ran into difficulties (including a fire in 1849 which necessitated rebuilding work for around a year) and fell silent in 1855. It was put up for sale, but no buyer was ever found and finally it was converted into a flour mill in 1866.

A new Glen Albyn was built in 1883-84 by Gregory & Co., but it is uncertain if this was on the same site as the original distillery buildings.

John Birnie, the distillery manager left in a huff in 1892 after being refused a share in the distillery by Gregory & Co. He immediately founded his own distillery, Glen Mhor, in partnership with John Mackinlay of Charles Mackinlay & Co, of Black Dog fame.

Their taking over of Glen Albyn from Gregory & Co - nearly thirty years after Birnie left - must have been sweet revenge.

Glen Albyn was among several to close in 1983. The buildings were demolished three years later and the site is now a shopping complex.

The world’s first regulated whisky investment fund was launched in 2018. Single Malt Fund allows investors to buy a small part of a bigger collection of rare and limited-edition whiskies.

There was a whisky rebellion in Pennsylvania in 1794 due to whisky taxing. The tax was eventually repealed in 1802.

The first Scottish distillery to install a Coffey Still was the Grange Distillery, which fell silent in 1851.

There are over 300,000 varieties of barley but only a few are suitable for malt whisky production.

In Victorian times, some Scottish distilleries allowed workers to stop for a dram each time a bell rang.

Distilled alcoholic beverages made from gluten grains are gluten-free due to distillation removing gluten proteins.

Nikola Tesla drank whisky every day because he thought that it would make him live for 150 years.

The combination of beer and whisky is known as a ‘boilermaker’ in America, where blue-collar labourers regarded it as an effective pick-me-up after a shift down in the mines.

After Prohibition ended in the USA, 69-year-old James B. Beam got his distillery up and running in just 120 days.

The Dublin Inferno, at its peak, measured 2ft wide, 6 inches deep and stretched more than 400m down one side of Mill Street.

Caps, porringers, and other vessels were in great requisition to scoop up the liquor as it flowed from the burning premises, and some were observed to take off their boots and use them as drinking cups.

None of the deceased perished in the flames, nor did they die of smoke inhalation - each succumbed to alcohol poisoning from drinking “freely of the derelict whiskey”.

Ireland’s Old Bushmills Distillery claims to be the country’s oldest legally functioning distillery. Operations on the present site date back to 1276 by some accounts.

Pot still whiskey is made by combining both malted and unmalted barley in the mashbill, prior to fermentation, and then distilling in traditional copper pot stills.

The monopoly once in sole charge of producing Finnish alcohol (including whisky) was also responsible for the production of Molotov cocktails for its military.

Bailey’s Irish Cream – a blend of cream and Irish whiskey – did not come into existence until 1974. It was the first Irish cream to be commercialised.

The record for most expensive whisky cocktail sold is a refresh of the traditional Manhattan made with a 55-year-old Macallan served at Dubai’s Skyview Bar. Costing £4,632, the posh concoction was stirred with a very special oak stick from a cask of Macallan. It was also served with ice made from the same water used to produce the single malt whisky it contains.

In a study published by the journal Chem, researchers used fluorescent dyes to map age, area of origin and taste of drams from the US, Scotland and Ireland. They hope to harness these findings and develop a method of detecting counterfeit whisky and other alcohol.

In 2017 Scottish scientists powered a car using a biofuel derived from whisky residue.

Rachel Barrie was the first female master whisky blender and has paved the way for even more women joining the industry.

The record for the largest bottle of whisky goes to the distillers of Famous Grouse, who created 1.7-metre bottle containing 228 litres of whisky.

Jack Daniel ran away from his stepmother at the age of six and learned to distil whisky from a Lutheran minister.

Famously the first legal Scottish distillery in Speyside after owner George Smith obtained the first licence to distil following the Excise Act of 1823, Glenlivet became synonymous with best quality.

The company was forced to take legal action in the 1880s to prevent its rivals passing off their own wares as 'the Real Stuff'.

Despite the Smith family winning the exclusive right for their product to be known as 'The' Glenlivet, dozens of other distilleries persisted with the Glenlivet suffix (e.g. Macallan Glenlivet) for decades afterwards.

The ongoing Cellar Collection was created to showcase some of the superb older malts in the distillery's archives.

Some extremely old sherried vintages going back to the 1930s have been bottled by Gordon & Macphail.

The Glen of the river Livet is rather remote. The journey from the nearest settlement, Elgin, is a short drive north through the picturesque Cairngorm mountains today.

In the 1800s it was a daunting journey. Illicit distilleries flourished here, and gaugers were rather apprehensive of the trek.

In the year of the Excise Act, 1823, over 14,000 prosecutions were sought and Highland farmers brought to their knees.

The purity of the clear spring water flowing down the mountains into the Livet, and feeding Josie's Well, The Glenlivet's water source, ensured that the quality of spirit made by George Smith was excellent.

King George IV’s famous request of a glass of Glenlivet during his state visit to Edinburgh in 1823 made Glenlivet the best known brand.

George Smith’s application for Speyside's first license to legally distil whisky was seen as a serious betrayal by his neighbours. The family and distillery were always under armed guard.

In his own words, “The laird of Aberlour had presented me with a pair of hair trigger pistols worth ten guineas, and they were never out of my belt for years.”

The Glenlivet has often had a starring role on the silver screen. The whisky has appeared in films such as Anchorman, Grosse Pointe Blank, Birdcage and The Mummy.

Glendronach was founded in 1826 by James Allardice (also spelt Allardyce and Allardes), and almost completely destroyed by fire a decade later.

The single malt product was called the 'Guid GlenDronach' single malt.

Allardice is rumoured to have ensured the popularity of his whisky in Edinburgh in the 1840s by selling it through local prostitutes.

In 1920, the distillery was bought for £9000 by Charles Grant, whose father had founded Glenfiddich.

The distillery was taken over by Teacher's (for which blend the Glendronach malt was already a vital ingredient) in 1960.

This was the period Teacher’s Highland Cream reached its zenith.

Glendronach was mothballed in 1996.

The distillery became active again in 2002, but with changed malting.

In 2005, Pernod closed the distillery again to convert some of Scotland's last direct coal-fired stills to indirect steam-heated coils.

There are now no distilleries in Scotland using direct coal-fired stills.

In 2008, Pernod sold Glendronach to a consortium headed by Billy Walker & the BenRiach Distillery Company became the new owner.

The cask type used at Glendronach has changed in the last few years.

Traditionally the majority of the spirit was aged in Oloroso casks, however since the recommencement of production in 2002 bourbon casks have been used, meaning that future releases will have a different flavour profile to the batches being released today.

It is believed that the new owners will begin using sherry casks again.

In 2004, the Glengyle Distillery in Campbeltown restarted producing Single Malts.

The primary product of the distillery was the 12-year-old slightly smoky Kilkerran.

Under the "Peat in Progress" portfolio, Glengyle produced heavily peated Kilkerran bottles at 60.9% ABV, no E150A colour and without chill-filtration.

A new Kilkerran Cask Strength 8 Years has been released recently, bottled at 57.1% ABV and fully matured in re-charred Oloroso sherry casks.