Browsing Posts by Author: Billy

The Diageo Special are one of the biggest and most prestigious annual whisky launches, every year we receive the same question: what are they? In the beginning It all started at the turn of the…

Brian Kinsman is malt master for Glenfiddich, and also looks after the Grant’s range of blended whiskies and works with his mentor David Stewart on the Balvenie range. I caught up with Brian a while…

We’ve got great weather forecasts here in London, so it feels like time to whip up some drinks with the most tropical of spirits: rum. Here are five of my favourite rum cocktails to keep…

This week saw the inaugural Whisky Exchange Whisky Quiz of the Year. Five intrepid teams gathered in our Covent Garden shop to do battle for the honour of being crowned as the first champions. Across…

Last week was London Beer City, a week-long celebration of beer in the capital. Purely for research reasons, I threw myself wholeheartedly into the festivities, stopping in at the London Craft Beer Festival for a…

When it comes to pairing a meal with drinks, wine and beer are still winning. However, one corner of the culinary world has had a long connection with spirits: American barbecue. While the stereotypical image…

Britain is positively awash with whisky. While most distilleries are located north of the border, and Wales’s Penderyn has been making waves for years, England is now rapidly filling up with whisky makers. Back in…

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,…

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…

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:…

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…

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…

There are a confusing number of types of Scotch whisky. From single malts to vatted grains and blended whisky, people call whisky lots of different things. This month we’re focusing on blended whisky, so it’s…