The Scotch Blog

Words of Great Wisdom

Taken at The Pot Still in Glasgow.

Happy Birthday Cask 311

On my recent stint at the Bruichladdich Distillery Academy, while I was moving casks into and out of Bruichladdich's Warehouse #2 (the last stop for most casks before being moved to the bottling hall), I ran into Teun, Arthur and Bob, the Bruichladdies from Holland.

You may have seen Bob & Teun at one of the European Whisky festivals - they are are hard to miss in their Saint Andrew's Cross Rugby shirts.

They are also the organizers of the recent Whisky Walk Peat Night which had taken place just the Saturday (9/16) before I saw them. Duncan MacGillivray, Bruichladdich Distillery Manager, was a guest at the Whisky Walk and told me it was a fantastic event.

Whisky 101. Try it again?

A year or so back, we started up a discussion forum called Whisky101.
The idea was to have a place for novices to learn more about whisky, a place for connoisseurs to share knowledge, and a place for both to talk to the "experts".

Instability of the host did us in, however, and we put the site in deep freeze.

After checking back periodically and seeing that the site seems to be up on a regular basis, It felt like a good time to defrost.

I'd like to invite everyone to participate by going to www.whisky101.com (which is also the list of some great online resources), select Whisky101 Forum, register and start chatting.

Would love to get it up and running once again.

There's are two ground rules.
1. Respect Others
2. When posting, try to put it in the forum that makes the most sense.
No forum that matches what you want to say? Email me and suggest a new one.

Other than that - have fun, learn something and/or teach something.

By the way - there are areas of this forum that are ONLY available to registered users (Such as the Trading Post), and Guests can not post messages.

So please register and participate.
Thanks!

Happy Birthday, Amanda

It's my daughter Amanda's birthday today.
Happy Birthday!

Breakfast in Glasgow

Note to self:
When in the Glasgow airport, looking for breakfast, DO NOT get a bagel from O'Brien's. Though they mimic a bagel in both form and color - the similarities end there.

They are by far, the most inedible thing I've ever put in my mouth.

SingleMalt.tv

On September 29th, an interesting new site will kick off - that's the day that SingleMalt.tv launches.

Not really "television", it's an online channel - which is, in my estimation, the next logical step for the integration of infotainment and edumedia.

From the press release:

SINGLEMALT.tv is an Internet Protocol Television channel (IPTV) hosted by Narrowstep (UK), one of the world’s leading IPTV service providers. An IPTV channel brings video  programming directly to the desktop or laptop via the Internet. Viewers who visit www.singlemalt.tv have access to programming 24 hours a day with scheduled events and video on demand including news, features and ongoing series, all drawn from the world of Scotch.

Mailing List

A reminder to people to sign up for the mailing list.

Just to the right under "Stay in Touch..." click on "...Join the mailing list"

Be sure to include where you live, as I occasionally send out emails to people in specific cities about local information and events.

I promise never to sell or give-out your email address, and any emails will come directly from me.

Remember, joining the mailing list is different than "...get new stories via email" which uses FeedBlitz to send The Scotch Blog stories (the day after they are published here) directly to your mailbox - another useful service.

7 Casks, 7 Tastes

I'd like to talk about sampling whisky directly from cask samples - something most of us never get to do.

On a recent trip to visit the blending lab at Compass Box, I had a chance to try samples from 7 different casks which had been treated with 3 different toasting levels. Other than the toast of the wood, the contents of the casks and length of maturation was identical.

The thing that surprised me most was that all of the samples, even those from similarly toasted casks, each had it's own nose and taste characteristics - no two samples were alike.

I'm going to talk about the differences between those cask samples - I didn't take extensive tasting notes since you'll never be able to buy bottles from these individual casks. I'm also specficially not going into details about the whisky or the wood, as John has to keep some secrets. So don't ask.

On the Road with The Malt Project - Part 2

Today we bring you part 2 of On the Road with The Malt Project by guest writer Jack Oswald.

At the end of the story there is another chance for one lucky reader to win an "I'm a Peat Freak! Are You?" t-shirt from The Malt Project.

Click here to read part 1.

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On the Road with The Malt Project Part 2 – by Jack Oswald

So, it’s about this time that you ask “why are they doing this?”. We’ve asked ourselves that a number of times.  The real answer is a labor of love. I lived in Scotland for nearly four years, while I was an Air Force Officer. Our two oldest kids were born there. (I guess that’s why Jeff is a malt freak).  We’ve gone back to visit several times and usually wound up at a distillery. My production associates are all great single malt fans and we just felt it was something we wanted to share with our viewers.  As we say on our web site “This is a Whisky DVD series designed for all, from the novice to the serious connoisseur.  It’s valuable as an entertaining visit to Scotland and as an educational reference companion when you’re sharing your malts”.

At this point, you’re supposed to be asking, “What can we expect in Volume Six?” Glad you asked.  It’ll be another two disc volume probably titled The Islands, the Shores, and Campbeltown and off the beaten path Speysides”.

200th Post

I've reached a milestone here at The Scotch Blog.

This is the 200th post. It's taken 1 year and 1 month and 17 days to get to this point.
During that time I've:

• Had over 100,000 visitors from over 90 countries
• Visited 27 distilleries
• Attended six whisky expos in three countries
• Given away a LOT of shirts, hats and miscellaneous schwag
• Published two editions of my book The Instant Expert's Guide to Single Malt Scotch
• Received email and talked with readers from all over the world (courtesy of cheap airfare and Skype)
• Had the opportunity to meet too many people to mention

I hope I've entertained and informed - and I plan to continue to do so until either this stops being fun or people stop reading.