Browsing Posts by Author: Billy

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…

Glenmorangie‘s Dr Bill Lumsden – director of distillation and whisky creation – likes to experiment. While some of the distillery’s Private Edition releases – his yearly chance to showcase the whiskies he has been tinkering…

Karuizawa is an almost unobtainable whisky. I’m incredibly lucky in getting to try it from time to time, but I hold a strange opinion that gets me strange looks from whisky fans: I think bourbon-cask-matured…

Burns Night is upon us. Expect the internet to be filled with pictures of steaming haggises, triple tartan outfits and more kilts than you can wave a sgian-dubh at. Here on The Whisky Exchange blog,…

When it comes to revivals, Glenglassaugh has had one of the more impressive crawls back from the dead in recent years. A decade of stuttering resurrection has been rewarded with the dawning of a new…

Blending whisky is hard. It takes master blenders years to hone their skills, working up slowly through the ranks to take on the creation of new whiskies. However, that shouldn’t stop you having a go…

It was a busy year, 2017. Lots of new things to drink, lots of tastings to attend and lots of new posts on the blog. So, before we properly commit to 2018 (it’s only a…

Brendan McCarron is Head of Maturing Whisky Stocks for The Glenmorangie Company – makers of Ardbeg and Glenmorangie – and heir apparent to the company’s whisky creator, Dr Bill Lumsden. We spoke to him at…

One summer, years ago, in the early days of my obsession with drinks, I went away for a long weekend in Portugal and came back a changed man: a few summery days in Porto are…

Dan Szor is the founder of Cotswolds Distillery. He left behind a career in finance to follow his love of whisky and build the first distillery in the area. After years of development and hard…