Contents
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When is a blend, not a blend? When it’s a vatted malt.
When is a blend, not a blend? When it’s a vatted malt. For the Scotch Whisky Association has decided that the best way to end the confusion over definitions of various styles of whisky is to redefine ...
By Dominic Roskrow in the section
From the Editor
p13
Michael Jackson goes a few rounds by taxi
At dinner with Suntory recently, I was pleased to be seated next to John McLaren, who is always good for an entertaining story. I was keen to hear about his more recent career as a novelist.
His firs...
By Michael Jackson in the section
Musings with Michael Jackson
p14
Tokyo you expect the unexpected - most of the time
Scene: A shopping mall somewhere in Tokyo. Time: Night. The stores are filled with gangs of Japanese teenagers. Each store is playing a different soundtrack. Neon, eye-aching bright lights, the highpi...
By Dave Broom in the section
A dram with Dave Broom
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In just three years, the Whisky Fair at Limburg in Germany has established a good reputation and continues to attract excellent visitor numbers.
In just three years, the Whisky Fair at Limburg in Germany has established a good reputation and continues to attract excellent visitor numbers.
The omens for this year’s fair, on the last weekend in...
By Dominic Roskrow in the section
Whisky Events
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How should the industry react over the issue of responsible drinking?
The Panel
Abigail Bosanko, author and whisky enthusiast (AB)
Chuck Cowdrey, American whiskey writer (CKC)
Keir Sword, proprietor, Royal Mile Whiskies (KS)
Q. There is a growing view that society is b...
By Dominic Roskrow in the section
Whisky Debate
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This is the third time we have held the Best of the Best. But as Dominic Roskrow reports, this is the biggest and most ambitious attempt yet to find the world's best whiskies
Almost 60 great whiskies tasted blind in five countries by more than 100 tasters over four months... the Best of the Best event in 2005 can rightly claim to be the most ambitious whisky tasting ever h...
By Dominic Roskrow in the section
Whisky Awards
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The Icons of Whisky recognise the people and companies that have made the biggest contribution to the world of whisky. Dominic Roskrow explains how the winners were chosen
It’s become something of an annual ritual. At an indeterminate time after the summer and before Christmas, Dave Broom will telephone in a bit of a flap. Have we thought about the voting for Icons? He’...
By Dominic Roskrow in the section
Icons of Whisky
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In the latest of his series on classic cocktails, Ian Wisniewski looks at the Old-Fashioned
The Old Fashioned is more than just a whisky cocktail, it’s also a concept, as the same principle of sweetening, chilling and diluting can be applied to other aged spirits, such as rum or brandy, to m...
By Ian Wisniewski in the section
Whisky Cocktails
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Ian Buxton visits the picturesque and constantly surprising Glen Grant distillery in Speyside
One of Glen Grant’s more obscure claims to fame is its name. After all, it should logically be called Glen Rothes, after the small Speyside town where it is to be found.
And it does have first claim ...
By Ian Buxton in the section
Distillery Focus
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The Wright Wine Company doesn’t do exactly what it says on the tin. Richard Jones investigates
You could be forgiven for thinking the shop didn’t actually sell whisky at all. Situated on the outskirts of the historic North Yorkshire market town of Skipton, the self-styled ‘Gateway to the Yorksh...
By Richard Jones in the section
Whisky Spotlight
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Tullibardine is a distillery crossed with a shopping centre. Can it keep whisky fans happy without alienating the general public? Our man had a look
I had distinctly high hopes of Tullibardine. It’s not every day that you get to see a re-opened distillery and a brand new visitor operation – and one that’s going to be very important at that.
I’d b...
By Mystery Visitor in the section
Mystery Visitor
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The basic process of making whisky is similar throughout the world. But there are always some who have to be different. Dave Broom meets the misfits
There is something about the misfit which attracts me. Iconoclasts, outsiders, people who challenge the norm, look at it from an original, if skewed, perspective and who by doing so, make the field wi...
By Dave Broom in the section
Whisky Interview
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A couple of years ago there was a spate of takeovers of Scottish distilleries and independent buyouts. What happened to them? Ian Buxton investigates
Once upon a time, almost all Scotch whisky was made by independent companies. Then, over time, the twin pressures of economics and competition forced rationalisation and, one by one, the independent c...
By Ian Buxton in the section
Whisky Trends
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Whisky dinners are becoming increasingly popular in Belgium. Martine Nouet meets a chef passionate about malt on the plate
Whisky is a serious matter in Belgium. Whisky clubs number their members by hundreds, not by dozens. A new distillery has even started operating on old-looking pot-stills in Grâce-Hollogne, a village ...
By Martine Nouet in the section
Whisky and Food
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Joe Bates provides a guide to the best duty free purchases and looks at the best stores to buy from. This issue: World of Whiskies
Best Buy
Glen Garioch 46 Year Old
Morrison Bowmore is best known in travel retail for its smoky Islay malt Bowmore, which has grown rapidly to become one of the top 10 malts in duty-free. However, t...
By Joe Bates in the section
Travel retail
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Jefferson Chase takes a nostalgic trawl through Robert Penn Warren’s political classic
Struggling to maintain my sanity amidst all the sensationalist soundbites, proxy mudslinging and media manipulation of the 2004 American Presidential election, I turned to Robert Penn Warren’s All the...
By Jefferson Chase in the section
Whisky Literature
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He’s here, he’s there... it’s not easy to pinpoint what Duncan Buie does. But Richard Jones has a go
Before I interviewed Duncan Buie, mashman and stillman at Isle of Jura distillery, I was told, “Yes, he’s more than happy to speak to you, but he doesn’t really think there is a typical day in his wor...
By Richard Jones in the section
A day in the life
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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...
By Charles MacLean in the section
Distillery Focus
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Some of the best whisky makers and blenders are women. Charles Cowdrey met some of them at a special roadshow.
A couple of issues back Whisky Magazine reported that more women than ever are drinking whisky, a revolutionary albeit welcome development, but women making whisky? If there still is a male-dominated ...
By Charles K. Cowdery in the section
Whisky Trends
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While it doesn’t follow that older is necessarily better, great older whiskies are rare and to be respected. Ian Wisniewski reports
It’s hardly surprising that malts aged 40 years, and longer, are a rare and recent phenomenon, as 15 years aging was widely considered the limit for malts up until the 1970s.
Consequently, more matur...
By Ian Wisniewski in the section
Whisky Production
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This issue BBC Radio London DJ and all-rounder Nigel Barden looks at cocktails
Polly’s Special, Blood and Sand, The Vibrators, Rattlesnake, Casanova, Gloom Lifter and Zig Zig Sputnik. I know you’ve spotted it; a list of whisky based cocktails with a couple of 1980s rock bands th...
By Nigel Barden in the section
The Last Word
