Browsing Posts by Author: Billy

This week is the Islay Festival of Music and Malt, aka Feis Ile. For eight days, the small, southern Hebridean island doubles its population with an influx of people from around the world, almost all…

As someone who spends a lot of time writing tasting notes for whisky on his own, I sometimes forget that the true joy of a dram is sharing it with someone. Father’s Day is just…

Announcing our latest Whisky Exchange exclusive – a rare chance to try one of Loch Lomond’s wide range of single malts that don’t usually see the light of day as single malts. Introducing our brand…

With The Cognac Show starting on Friday, there’s one final step in my Cognac education I need to share: how to drink the stuff… Fortunately, I’ve had expert tuition from Whisky Exchange buyer Dawn Davies…

The Cognac business is a strange one. It is dominated by the Big Four – Hennessy, Rémy Martin, Martell and Courvoisier – but there are hundreds of producers in the region. Cognac is built around…

The launch of the annual Diageo Special Releases is one of the big whisky events of the year. Whether you want to buy them or not, the discussion that’s generated online and the fight for…

Every year, there are a few drinks that bartenders and writers fall in love with. Folks like me run around telling everyone how great they are and sometimes, unfortunately, people listen – we’re still apologising…

With The Cognac Show rapidly approaching, we’re digging further into the world of Cognac. While there are hundreds of producers in the region – we have more than 80 in our A-Z of Cognac –…

With The Cognac Show just around the corner, we’ve been investigating France’s most famous spirit. But what is Cognac, where is it made and how do they make it? The region Cognac is the name…

As usual, March sees the announcement of the first big whisky awards of the year – The World Whiskies Awards. If you just want to see who won, skip to the bottom of this post…

St Patrick’s Day is on Saturday. While it’s generally seen as an excuse to go out for some drinks, for me it’s also the ideal time to try and sneak some Irish whiskey into your…

It was my birthday last week. In celebration of the beginning of my fifth decade, I gathered a team of crack whisky drinkers to make a pilgrimage to one of Scotland’s most surprisingly remote towns:…

There are a lot of different types of whisky show. From our own London show, with its gigantic dram list that requires planning in advance to get the most out of, to smaller shows like…

Irish whiskey is booming. For a long time it has been seen as Scotch whisky’s less-popular sibling, but the past few years have seen it explode in popularity. The biggest driver is Jameson, a blended…

‘We were saved by rock and roll‘ When it comes to statements you weren’t expecting to hear, that must be up there with them. Stood in the large entrance hall of an Irish castle with…

Absinthe is a drink surrounded by stories and misconceptions. From tales of murderous rampages under its influences to decades of being banned across Europe, its reputation is fearsome and almost entirely undeserved. It’s time to…

It’s the middle of February and our first big event of 2018 approaches – my favourite weekend of the year: The Whisky Show Old & Rare. On 24 and 25 February, we’ll be moving north…

In the cocktail world, it’s white rum that gets all the love: lightly flavoured and with no colour to muddy the other ingredients, it’s an ideal pick (most of the time). However, if you want…