This is a guide for all you people out there who suffer from hangovers in a big way. Hopefully this will help in your recovery from a night of over indulgence. The morning after the night before. You wake up on the floor of your room in the same clothes you wore last night …
One of the Scotch whisky industry’s greatest secrets sits at the foot of the Ochil Hills. You may notice some warehouses close to the road as you drive past, but it’s more likely that your eyes will be drawn to Dumyat’s crags or the phallic thrust of the Wallace Monument on the near horizon. …
One of the more intriguing aspects of bourbon’s revival is the way in which its stubborn old guardians have been proved right. None more so than Wild Turkey’s Jimmy Russell. A glance at the Wild Turkey distillery confirms that this place doesn’t abide by convention. As other firms are tidying up their plants, the …
The roll-call of distilleries and brands which disappeared when the Irish industry imploded is an extensive one. Locke’s Kilbeggan (now revived under Cooley), Dundalk, Allman’s Bandon, Comber and Tullamore are just some of the famous and respected distillers who simply found it impossible to carry on, no matter how good people thought their whiskey …
Throughout recorded history there has always been alcohol in of some variety, think of this, when you are sitting on a Friday night with your vodka and coke or Pernod and lemonade, does it ever cross your mind how exactly the drink came about. Below is a history of some of the more popular …
Ask the Edrington Group’s master blender, John Ramsay, what makes his drams different and he immediately proposes marriage. In the whisky-making sense, of course. Marriage used to be normal practice for blenders: before bottling, malts and grains would be brought together for a period of mingling. Most firms have abandoned the art, but Edrington …
Sometimes when you are thanking a long-dead distiller for building his still in such a stunning location, you wonder at the insanity that led him to settle on such a remote spot. Talisker is one of those places: situated high on the northwest coast of Skye in Scotland, it looks back to the jagged …
The decline of Campbeltown as a distilling capital came suddenly. Of the 21 distilleries that Barnard visited, only two are still in existence and one of them, Glen Scotia, is open only intermittently. The good news is that you will soon be able to buy five different Campbeltown malts; four from one distillery – …
It would be appropriate for a people-based profile of whisky to begin by naming the first whisky maker. Sadly, no one knows who he was. In fact, no one knows who the first distiller was. It is clear that from AD 4 onwards, alchemists in China, India, Arabia, Egypt and Greece were using distillation …
The Samuels, like the Beams, are part and parcel of Kentucky’s history. The family has been a distillers since 1780, and their TW Samuels brand was an early classic. One of their ancestors, Rueben Samuels, married Zerelda James, whose sons became better known for a less peaceful way of life. Bill Samuels, current boss …