One man's excuse…
December is usually a slow time for whisky news – everyone’s keeping quiet to try and make sure that nothing gets in the way of Christmas sales. However, with Boxing Day just moments behind us and turkey leftovers as yet un-curried, Diageo announced its latest big thing: the new distillery being built at Port Ellen has received planning permission.
Continue reading “Port Ellen – planning permission granted”
There has been much discussion of late about the creations of Lost Spirits, a company working on speeding up the ageing of spirits. While the process and ideas, and the surrounding recent furore, are interesting, the discussion unearthed a few things for me that dig much deeper into the world of drinks.
Yesterday’s announcement from Diageo about the ‘reopening’ of Port Ellen and Brora caught the whisky world unawares. At first, it made no sense to me, but after a day of mulling it over, and reading interviews and the internet, it’s started to come together. Here’s a round up of what we know and my thoughts.
Continue reading “Port Ellen and Brora: The Resurrection”
Christmas and New Year are approaching. I know this because I’ve received the ‘prepare for the PAIN’ email at work, warning us of the propensity of people to purchase boozes towards the end of the year and the commensurate increase in the amount of work that us booze slinging retailers will see as it approaches. However, we’ve also noticed this at Whisky Squad and to help in the selection of some more thrifty purchases for the festive season we brought in m’colleague Tim Forbes of TWE to go through a range of more affordable, ‘bang for your buck’ purchases.
Rumours that the session was once going to be called “Timmy Wimmy’s Nifty Thrifty Whisky for Chrissy” are entirely true. It was vetoed quite early on by Mr Forbes, as he has a modicum of pride left in his body. I will, however, be referring to my younger brother as Timmy Wimmy for the rest of the year to ensure balance.