The Whisky Exchange BLOG

When it comes to spirts, we’re a broad church here at TWE: we like anything so long as it’s well-made, and one of our favourite spirits (after whisky, of course) is Rum.  We distribute a few excellent rums under our Speciality Brands agency, so naturally we were delighted to take a stand (literally and metaphorically) at this year’s Rumfest, which was held at the Royal Agricultural Halls in London (the same place as Whisky Live).

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An advance press release for the much-debated Bruichladdich X4 white dog - sorry, ‘Islay Spirit’ - has found its way into my inbox, so I thought I should share.  I’ve had to type it out as I can’t copy the text from an image file, but it’s probably better this way as much of the text on the file I have is SHOUTING IN BLOCK CAPITALS!  I THINK WHOEVER PUT IT TOGETHER MUST HAVE BEEN VERY EXCITED ABOUT THE WHOLE THING!!!

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I’ll do a post about the Special Releases tasting very soon, but first I have to tell you about our Glenmorangie Signet event at TWE Vinopolis last Monday (20th October).  We were doubly blessed as this was our second visit from Glenmorangie plc in consecutive weeks after the Ardbeg tasting the previous Monday.

Tasting line-up

Rachel Barrie, Glenmorangie’s Master Blender was scheduled to present the show, but unfortunately was unable to attend.  Thankfully, Annabel Meikle who works on the team with Rachel and Dr. Bill Lumsden very kindly stepped into the breach and gave us a thoroughly entertaining evening.  The line-up was as follows - I’ll try and limit myself to short descriptions of all but the Signet as otherwise this post will be far too long, even by my own bloated elephantine standards:

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Crikey!  That’s been a quick fortnight - apologies for the temporary interruption in the blog, it’s all been pretty hectic here.

Last week flew by so quickly everyone at TWE was struggling to keep up with it - what with the huge demand for Port Ellen 8th Release and plenty of interest in the other newbies it was always going to be busy - but we also had to get ready for the epic messiness that is London’s Rumfest (of which more later).  

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Yes, the wait is over and this year’s Diageo Special Releases are finally here.  You’ll probably need to get in quick if you want one of the Port Ellen Eighth Releases and the Brora 25yo will be very popular too.  Many thanks to everyone taking part in the poll, it looks like the Lagavulin 12yo will be as popular as ever - although we couldn’t help noticing that it’s exactly the same strength as last year, something that also happened with the 2nd and 3rd releases. 

Is this coincidence, or are Diageo just making up mega-batches of this and drip-feeding it out?  We don’t know, but it’d certainly be a good tasting if anyone wants to find out.

PS: I know, I said I’d get my tasting notes for the Blasda up on Tuesday.  So much for my good intentions.  We’ve had a bit of a crazy week here, with lots of work going into our new trade pricelist and a large number of new releases arriving in the warehouse in anticipation of the Christmas rush.  I will endeavour to do my report on the wonderful Ardbeg tasting at Vinopolis from home over the weekend.  In the meantime you can laugh at the photos and sigh at my captions here.  Have a good weekend and join me for more madness next week.

So, it’s finally here.   1800 bottles for the UK market, malt peated to 25 ppm, giving 8ppm in the bottle, no age statement, chill-filtered and bottled at 40% abv.  An ongoing product scheduled to have a three-year lifespan.

Ardbeg Blasda

It’s Ardbeg Blasda.

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Okay, so here’s the rest of the info on this year’s Diageo Special Releases, which should be here in a week or two.  As before, the text below is all from the Diageo marketing department - except for my sniping, which is done in italics - and I will be tasting all of these at the official launch at the end of the month and will post my findings shortly thereafter.  In the meantime, Serge has reviewed the Port Ellen 8th Release and the Brora 25yo already on whiskyfun, so if you just can’t wait for an independent assessment, that’s where you should go.

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Well, a day late, here’s the new post - for which delay, my apologies: it’s going crazy here.  Honestly, as soon as the weather turns people start buying whisky to keep them warm.  Either that or it’s the very, very organised people buying their C*r*s*m*s pressies early to get it out of the way. 

But anyway, mustn’t grumble, it keeps me busy.  On with the show - here’s the official photos and tasting notes for the forthcoming Diageo Special Releases, due to arrive imminently at TWE Towers.  I was going to include the press release, but it’s somewhat long-winded and, dare I say it, a tad self-satisfied, so I’ll skip it for now. 

There’s a lot of info here, so to make it a bit easier to digest, I’m going to break it up into two parts.  More tomorrow.  All that follows below is from the Diageo marketing dept and does not necessarily reflect the views of myself or TWE (as we haven’t tried them yet!).  I’ve been lucky enough to get an invite to the launch of these in a few weeks time, so will report back in full after that.

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In the comments section of our last post on Octomore, drJarv (who I’m assuming is on the design team for Octomore as he hasn’t denied it yet!) asked for our thoughts on the coated opaque bottle that they’ve gone for with Octomore (Bruichladdich fans will remember that both Blacker Still and Redder Still were similarly adorned with this coating). 

Poster bgulien immediately responded with a fair point that these coatings make it difficult to see how much whisky you have left.  I decided to throw my tuppence-worth in and started to write a quick comment - but it kind of turned into a bit of a rant and opened up a bit of a can of worms, so I thought I’d do it as a new post and throw the floor open for discussion.  Here goes:

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Well, you know it must be coming up to Christmas (Whaaat?!).  Over a month to Halloween yet and the mince pies were already on sale in Sainsbury’s last Sunday.  And suddenly the first few smatterings of the forthcoming deluge of new products from hungry distilleries eager to cash in on the festive season have begun in earnest.   We’ve already had the Glenmorangie Astar, and the Signet can’t be far away.  Ardbegs Blasda and Mor II are imminent, and very soon the new Diageo Special Releases will be upon us (more details of all of which very soon).

But naturally, and despite their shy and retiring natures, some of the biggest publicity splashes and most highly sought-after and discussed new releases of the winter will be coming in the next two or three weeks from Bruichladdich. 

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