Browsing Posts by Author: Billy

Now, stick with me – this is going to sound a bit weird: I like Jack Daniel’s Honey. That’s not the sort of admission you’d expect a whisky geek to make, but after extensive sampling…

Knockdhu is a strangely anachronistic distillery. Founded in 1894, at the time it was a thoroughly modern facility, with a steam engine, railway sidings, and all mod cons. However, not much has changed since then,…

Ardbeg Day approaches. The final day of the Islay Festival, it’s become the biggest celebration of the week thanks to the distillery’s unique approach: don’t only have a party on the island. This year is…

This year’s Islay Festival is one of anniversaries and milestones. Along with Kilchoman’s 10th birthday and Jim McEwan’s retirement there are a pair of big-number celebrations: the 200th anniversaries of the founding of both Ardbeg…

The opening weekend of the Islay Festival isn’t normally a time for sadness, but yesterday saw the end of an era: Jim McEwan hosted his final warehouse tasting at Bruichladdich. While we don’t expect Jim to…

The Whisky Exchange Whisky Show 2015 is a mere four-and-a-half months away. Tickets are selling well, with early-bird weekend passes down to the last handful, exhibitors are starting to confirm and things are generally going…

Campari is one of the most iconic of Italian drinks. Its popularity has waned in the UK over the past couple of decades, but with the current cocktail renaissance slowly spreading out across the country,…

Telecoms-project-manager-turned-distiller Phil Brandon founded Rock Town in 2010, the first legal distillery in Arkansas. While he’s based in downtown Little Rock, he spends a lot of time on the road, travelling around the USA and…

We run a lot of events through the year, from barrel-top tastings in our shop through to The Whisky Exchange Whisky Show‘s weekend of wonder, but every now and again we do something very different….

There are few people who have been more influential in modern whisky than Jim McEwan. From managing Bowmore to restarting Bruichladdich, he has helped build a legion of dedicated fans. But, after more than five decades…

One of the favourite jobs at Whisky Exchange HQ is choosing whisky to become a TWE exclusive. Whether it’s from our own stocks of maturing casks or someone else’s stash, the opportunity to decide that a…

We recently managed to grab a few minutes before a whisky tasting with Ardbeg distillery manager Mickey Heads. Here’s what he had to say about life on Islay. ‘I was born in Port Ellen too…

If you’ve looked at a bottle of Laphroaig over the past few years, then you probably know why 2015 is a big year for the distillery – founded in 1815, as they proudly state on their labels,…

For the past year, we’ve been naming a Malt of the Month. We’ve had some excellent drams, with great  special offers, from old favourites like Laphroaig 10 and Highland Park 12, to lesser-known gems like…

The Whisky Exchange Shop at Vinopolis hosts lots of great events. However, there’s one pair of presenters who stand out from the crowd when it comes to putting on an evening to remember, creating tastings that…

The Whisky Exchange and boutique whisky blender Compass Box have a few things in common: we started out from one person’s idea, we’re based in west London and we have fewer employees than most people assume….

Italy at the turn of the 20th century was a strange place. Having become a unified country in the middle of the 1800s, the new state had changed a lot, but was still steeped in tradition,…

‘I got into whisky because of my family. My grandfather, who recently passed away at 106, had drunk whisky all of his life. Sherry was his other tipple, but I didn’t speak Spanish so the…