Articles by Charles MacLean
Adelphi distillery, the top-of-the-market independent bottler, has been bought by a couple of landowners in Argyll. Charles MacLeanlooks at the company’s history and asks the new owners about their plans.
The first thing you notice about an Adelphi bottle is its minimalist labelling: a rectangular postagestamp, fixed low down on a clear glass standard liquor bottle, with an equally small back label tel...
From Issue 46 in
Distillery Focus
published on 10/3/2005
Tullibardine shut its doors in the 1990s. Now, as part of a retail complex, it is back. Charles MacLean went to the triumphant reopening
Although it only opened in 1949, Tullibardine was the first distillery to be commissioned in the 20th century. Its creator was William Delme-Evans, a Welshman with a dream. Within four years he sold h...
From Issue 45 in
Whisky Trends
published on 21/1/2005
The Welsh Whisky Company is in business and impressing whisky experts with its product. Charles MacLean visited it
Like all good whisky tales, the story of the revival of distilling in Wales begins in a pub.
It was 1997. Brian Morgan, an economist who was at the time working for the Welsh Development Agency (he i...
From Issue 44 in
Whisky Trends
published on 25/11/2004
With two wind farms proposed for Speyside, Charles Maclean asks: how will they affect this unspoiled area?
Speyside has a unique magic, as many readers of this magazine know. That’s why it’s one of Scotland’s leading visitor attractions; each year over a million people come to ski in the Cairngorms,...
From Issue 25 in
Whisky landscapes
published on 16/8/2002
After 38 years in whisky, Brian Morrison, managing director of Morrison Bowmore Distillers, is retiring from his executie position to become Joint Chairman. He reminisces with Charles Maclean
Brian Morrison joined the Scotch whisky brokerage firm founded by his father at a crucial juncture in its history. The year before, in 1963, Stanley P. Morrison Ltd had bought Bowmore Distillery on th...
From Issue 21 in
Whisky Interview
published on 16/2/2002
Charles MacLean recalls a bygone era when distinguished gentlemen with a love of alliteration decided to distil whisky in Wales – only to have their brave venture scuppered by suspect casks and the Temperance movement
What is thought to be one of only three surviving bottles from a distillery in North Wales which closed in 1900 will be auctioned on Wednesday 26th September 2001 at Phillips International Auctioneers...
From Issue 18 in
Welsh Whisky
published on 16/9/2001
Charles Maclean talks to Dr Nicholas Morgan who, as UDV's Marketing Direcotr (Malts), is responsibel for the largest portfolio of malt whiskies in the world.
CM Is it unusual for a professional historian to take up a senior marketing job?
NM Not if you take your heritage seriously and want to use it to support brands and marketing activity. Several of U...
From Issue 16 in
Whisky Interview
published on 16/6/2001
Charles Maclean talks to Barry Crockett, Master Distiller at Midleton Distillery
CM I believe distilling is in your blood?
BC Yes. My father worked as a distiller all his life. He started out in the Cork City Distillery, which made Cork Dry Gin and then moved to become Head Dist...
From Issue 15 in
Whisky Interview
published on 16/4/2001
A thrill ran through the press shortly before Christmas, summed up by The Scotsman’s headline: "Cheaper Whisky As Good As Fine Malts Say Experts" and inspired by a Which? report which had completed ...
From Issue 14 in
From the Editor
published on 16/2/2001
Charles Maclean talks to 'The Perfect Collector', Norman Shelley
CM When did you become involved with whisky?
NS Although I was educated in England, I have lived abroad all my life. My father worked for Shell Petroleum and during my first 21 years on this planet...
From Issue 14 in
Whisky Interview
published on 16/2/2001
The fires of summer have been extinguished, the clocks have gone back and the winter solstice approaches. The season of ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’ it may be, but today a chill, damp wind cuts...
From Issue 13 in
From the Editor
published on 16/12/2000
Charles Maclean visits inverarity Vaults a family company which has already earnt quite a reputation for the quality of its whiskies
I first met Hamish Martin five years ago on a remote trout loch in south Ayrshire. I tell a lie: actually I met him the night before in the lodge. He arrived late for dinner with a friend after having...
From Issue 13 in
Independent Bottlers
published on 16/12/2000
Charles Maclean talks to Andrew Symington of Signatory Vintage Scotch Whisky
CM How did you get into the whisky trade?
AS There was a family connection, my grandfather worked for VAT 69 for forty-odd years, but I discovered the pleasure of single malt and single cask singl...
From Issue 13 in
Whisky Interview
published on 16/12/2000
Today a new malt whisky distillery opened in Wales - the first for over a hundred years. Last week, Tomintoul Distillery was bought by a company of blenders and bottlers whom nobody has ever heard of,...
From Issue 12 in
From the Editor
published on 16/11/2000
Charles Maclean talks to the General Manger of America's oldest (and youngest) distillery.
CM What was the background to the idea?
BC Well, we felt that American distillers had not done all they could to develop connoisseurship amongst their consumers. You only have to look at what Robert M...
From Issue 12 in
Whisky Interview
published on 16/11/2000
I was lunching with my publisher recently in a trendy London restaurant, as one does. It was the kind of place which is favoured by advertising account executives and merchant bankers; my publisher wa...
From Issue 11 in
From the Editor
published on 16/9/2000
Whisky Magazine readers revelled in true highland hospitality when they were entertained at a William Grant and Sons special lunch.
While much of England was under water during the month of May, Scotland basked in warm spring sunshine. So it was when 20 Whisky Magazine readers met at Glenfiddich Distillery, in Dufftown, for a tou...
From Issue 11 in
Whisky Events
published on 16/9/2000
Maturation expert, Dr Jim Veveridge, demonstrates the virtues of the refill cask to Charles Maclean.
CM Is it not something of a contradiction for a ‘back-room boy’ to become a ‘communicator’?
JB When I started with DCL it would have been unthinkable.
Even distillery managers within the compa...
From Issue 11 in
Whisky Interview
published on 16/9/2000
New madness from the European Commission about controls on water, and even its taxation, threatens the long standing water rights of Scottish distilleries. This is being vigorously opposed by the Scot...
From Issue 10 in
From the Editor
published on 16/6/2000
Charles Maclean talks to Sheila Burties, the highly espected sensory chemist.
CM Can everyone nose?
SB Physiologically we are all the same, and whatever stimulates our senses is the same. But just as with sight or hearing, the senses of taste and smell vary from person to per...
From Issue 10 in
Whisky Interview
published on 16/6/2000
The price of whisky in British shops comes tumbling down at Christmas every year. Five pounds off a bottle of malt is common; £1.50 off a blend.
“Great,” is our reaction to such a situation. The...
From Issue 9 in
From the Editor
published on 16/4/2000
Charles Maclean talks to Robert Hicks, the master blender at Allied Distillers.
CM Are whisky blenders born or trained?
RH A bit of both. You have to have the right temperament to be a blender. You have to be a perfectionist, passionate about fine detail – like a watchmaker, sa...
From Issue 9 in
Whisky Interview
published on 16/4/2000
Is it possible to compile an objective hierarchy of malts?
In the last issue of Whisky Magazine, we revealed the results of a survey which asked you to tell us your favourite malts. By chance, the results of a similar survey conducted by Highland Distillers w...
From Issue 8 in
From the Editor
published on 16/2/2000
As they tell you at every bus stop in Scotland come late afternoon at this time of year, “the nights are fair drawing in”. For some of us this is a legitimate excuse for pouring our evening drams ...
From Issue 7 in
From the Editor
published on 16/12/1999
In this issue we begin a series of interviews with celebrated whisky people. Here Charlie Maclean gives the last-frank- word ot broker and blender Peter Russell.
CM How did you come to work in the whisky trade, Peter?
PR My father came up from Kent in the 1920s to sell advertising space in Harper’s Wine & Spirit Gazette – his aunt was a Harper, and it ...
From Issue 7 in
Whisky Interview
published on 16/12/1999
With this issue Whisky Magazine celebrates its first anniversary. The birthday party will be held in New York because this issue also marks our arrival in the US, the largest consumer of whisky and wh...
From Issue 6 in
From the Editor
published on 16/10/1999
Noble qualities created Chivas Regal, the 'Chieftain's Tipple' and royals’ favourite. Charles MacLean explores the history of the Chivas brand.
What's in a name? Plenty where Chivas Regal is concerned, one of the world's top selling whiskies whose label hints of royal favour and intriguing Celtic ancestry.
The figures speak for themselves â ...
From Issue 6 in
Whisky Hero
published on 16/10/1999
It is always instructive to place matters in their historial perspective, and this is as true for whisky as for other matters.
The whisky trade has always been good at reinventing or forgetting its ...
From Issue 5 in
From the Editor
published on 4/8/1999
Charles Maclean examines the curious story of Clan Campbell and its acquired pedigree
It appears that S. Campbell & Sons, the predecessors of Campbell Distillers, the owners of Clan Campbell, were not actually Campbells at all. Samuel Campbell’s original name was Samuel Rosenbloom, a...
From Issue 5 in
Whisky Hero
published on 4/8/1999
In the final part of his nosing course, Charles Maclean suggests that classifying malts by region has little meaning classification by flavour is more useful: but how on earth do you do it?
Traditionally, malt whiskies have been classified by region: first Highland/Lowland, then Highland/Lowland/Islay/Campbeltown/Speyside, then a proliferation of sub-divisions of Highland and Speyside. T...
From Issue 5 in
Whisky Tasting
published on 4/8/1999
These are stirring times for Scotland, with the arrival of the first parliament for 192 years, and stirring times for the Scotch whisky industry, which seems to be losing the confidence of stockbroker...
From Issue 4 in
From the Editor
published on 13/6/1999
Grouse and the Gloags, part 1: Charles Maclean tells the history of a bird, a brand and a dynasty. For a profile of a thoroughly modern Matthew Gloag, see page 46.
My great-great-great-grandfather, Matthew Gloag the First, went into the wines and spirits trade in the early 1800s. Actually, he wasn't the first at all, since he had been named after his grandfather...
From Issue 4 in
Whisky Profile
published on 13/6/1999
In part four of his nosing course. Charles Maclean looks at how malts came to be classified by region
Traditionally, malt whiskies were classified geographically by their region of origin – the region itself lending style and character to the whisky made there. With the rediscovery of malt whiskies ...
From Issue 4 in
Whisky Tasting
published on 13/6/1999
From the outset it was the intention of Whisky Magazine to embrace whiskies and whiskeys other than Scotch, and this issue sets the ball rolling with pieces by Tim Atkin, Giles Macdonagh and myself ab...
From Issue 3 in
From the Editor
published on 13/5/1999
Charles Maclean meets the chairman or Ireland's newest distillery, Cooley, and finds that his story can only be told in epic form
Did you see my brown bull, when you were up at the distillery?’ asks John
Teeling, chairman of Cooley Distillery.
‘I did’, I replied. ‘What’s its significance?’
‘The Bull of Cooley; T...
From Issue 3 in
Whisky Hero
published on 13/5/1999
Charles Maclean continues his course by reinventing the wheel.
The first two pieces in this series have stressed the importance of smell in the evaluation and enjoyment of Scotch whisky – hence the use of the rather ponderous ‘sensory evaluation’ rather tha...
From Issue 3 in
Whisky Tasting
published on 13/5/1999
The week before Christmas we received official confirmation from the Scotch Whisky Association – the Scotch whisky trade’s governing body – that drinking whisky is good for you. Good news indeed...
From Issue 2 in
From the Editor
published on 16/3/1999
The original John Walker supplied tea and biscuits, wine and whisky to the sober bughers of Kilmarnock; his descendant Sir Alec Walker built a bath big enough for Churchill. Charles Maclean looks at a family that took a giant leep.
The striding Regency dandy with a twinkle in his eye, so familiar from the Johnnie Walker label, was first sketched on the back of a menu card over lunch in London in 1908. The artist was Tom Browne, ...
From Issue 2 in
Whisky Hero
published on 16/3/1999
Charles Maclean, glass in hand, continues his course in how to taste whisky
The way that you choose to drink whisky should of course be the way that you enjoy it most. Nevertheless, to appreciate your dram to the full, in all its glorious complexity, there is nothing better t...
From Issue 2 in
Whisky Tasting
published on 16/3/1999
Welcome to our very first issue of Whisky Magazine. We have been working on this launch issue for many months now, and hope you have as much fun reading it as we had putting it together. We haven’t ...
From Issue 1 in
From the Editor
published on 12/1/1999
Charles Maclean takes a midnight tour of spectural distillery dogs ghostly maltmen and spirit footsteps that are silenced by the burning of boots. So draw the curtains and gather round the fire
Soon after the 1978 centenary of Glenrothes the stillman on duty noticed a silent presence in the stillhouse. He recognized the visitor by his dark complexion and long white hair – it was ‘Bye-way...
From Issue 1 in
Distillery Focus
published on 12/1/1999
The nose has it: Charles Maclean on how to tast whisky, and exactly what your nose can tell you.
A sure sign of over-zealous indulgence is (of course) drinking alone. Another is (of course) drinking in the morning.This should concern me, I suppose. Solitary drinking is part of my job, and the bes...
From Issue 1 in
Whisky Tasting
published on 12/1/1999
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