Browsing Yearly Archives for 2017

To non-whisky drinkers, Scotch and bourbon are the same thing. A dark spirit, made with the same ingredients and aged in the same barrels. Right? Wrong. The two drinks have a lot in common but…

Loch Lomond distillery can be found a mile or so to the south of the eponymous loch, and has been quietly making whisky since 1964. For most of its life, the distillery has focused on…

In the run up to Black Tot Day at the end of July, we’ve been scouring our shelves for great rums. With so many producers, the number of rums out there can be overwhelming. So,…

Richard Seale, master distiller at Foursquare Distillery in Barbados, believes that the rum category needs clearer definitions so that the consumer knows exactly what they are buying. In this exclusive post for The Whisky Exchange, he…

Oh Canada. You make lots of great whisky but haven’t sent much of it to Europe…until now. For years, the only Canadian whiskies you’ve been able to find in Europe are the really big names:…

When it comes to drinks with history, rum has packed more into a shorter time than most. Despite only appearing in something approaching its current form in the 17th century, the past 400 years have…

We get a lot of questions at The Whisky Exchange, but the most common is simple: ‘Should I drink this bottle or sell it?’ Several times a day, someone who’s found a bottle hidden in…

Our lovely head buyer Dawn Davies knows more about wine than 99% of people on the planet. She’s a Master of Wine (MW), a qualification so tough there are only 350 people in the world…

When it comes to cocktails, gin is very much the spirit of choice at the moment. There’s a huge range of drinks and recipes out there, but here are three classics to get you started:…

When you think of food and whisky pairings, cheese, chocolate and meat may come to mind, but cupcakes? Elements of Islay international brand ambassador Mariella Romano hosted a whisky and cupcake evening for our Covent…

Over the past few years, Japanese whisky has exploded in popularity. From the most commonplace bottlings to limited-edition single casks, Japanese whisky has become increasingly hard to find as whisky fans have discovered how good…

We’re back from the Islay Festival of Music and Malt, after a successful week of pouring whisky, meeting old friends and making new ones. The Whisky Exchange Islay Pop-up Bar was a success, with hundreds…

Blending whisky is a skilled job. From combining hundreds of casks to make batches of large-scale blends such as Johnnie Walker to marrying a pair of casks for one-off single malt releases such as our…

One in three people living on Orkney have Scandinavian ancestry, so it was no surprise when Highland Park embraced this heritage with its Warriors Series, a range of whiskies named after proud Vikings: Sigurd, Harald,…

Gin is such a fast-moving drinks category that new releases are appearing every day and old favourites sometimes get forgotten. In an attempt to make sure that you don’t miss out, here’s a list of some…

Feis Ile, the yearly Islay Festival of Music and Malt, is a fixture of the Scotch malt whisky scene. Every year, the population of the isle of Islay doubles for a week at the end…

Joy Spence, master blender at Appleton Estate, was special guest at the latest Whisky Exchange tasting to share her favourite bottles and to spread the word about Jamaican rum. About Jamaican Rum The story of Jamaican…