Ardbeg’s manager Mickey Heads celebrating 10 years of service tomorrow

By Jesse Proulx on 2017-03-06 0

Mickey Heads, Manager of the Ardbeg distillery will be celebrating 10 years of service on 2017/03/07. Ardbeg has been celebrating on social media and has some special event planned to be announced shortly. If you are not yet an Ardbeg committee member you can sign up to get onto their mailing list to receive information on special events and special releases of Whiskey.

Join the Ardbeg Committee

Ardbeg Distillery

By Jesse Proulx on 2017-03-06 0

Ardbeg Distillery

Best Scotch: Ardbeg collection

Exterior shot of the Ardbeg distillery

Exterior shot of the Ardbeg distilery

Region: Islay
Established: 1815
Most popular product: Ardbeg 10 years old
Best value product: Ardbeg Uigedail

Ardbeg is the best distillery for heavily peat smoked scotches. Ardbeg first started commercial production in 1815. It ran until it was shut down in 1982 because of decreased demand for Scotch. It was purchased by Hiram Walker and reopened for small scale production in 1989. Hiram Walker also owned Laphroaig and ended up deciding to sell off Ardbeg to focus on its other Islay distillery. It was shut down for about a year until Glenmorangie purchased it and resumed production in 1997. It has seen gone on to see substantial success and receives much praise from fans of heavily peated scotches.

I would recommend against trying Ardbeg as a first peat smoked Scotch. You need to work up to this level of peat.
[Read more…] about Ardbeg Distillery

Does the term “Craft Distillery” make sense in the world of Scotch Whisky

By Jesse Proulx on 2017-02-13 0

Dave Broom prolific whisky author and editor for scotchwhisky.com discussed his point that we should do away with the term “Craft Distillery” in an interview with Mark Gillespie on WhiskyCast. He points out that “Craft distilleries” is only used when reffering to small independent distilleries. Here is an excerpt from his original article

Smaller-sized distillers need to cut through, but though Scotch is a noisy and cluttered category, there is room if they concentrate on making the best quality they can manage. The allegedly faceless big companies have whisky-makers every bit as dedicated as they are. Insulting them insults the whole category.

Oh and by the way, they are as ‘craft’ as anyone in their dedication to their work, so let’s drop that term as shorthand for small-scale. Enough. Please.

Dave Broom’s 2017 Whisky resolutions

The Best Scotch Under 50$

By Jesse Proulx on 2017-01-26 0

If you are looking for a great gift for a Scotch drinker or you are looking to build up a scotch collection, high-quality single malt scotch whiskies are a great way to go. Many Scotches are expensive, and it is easy to fall into the trap that you must pay top dollar to enjoy the best Scotch whiskies. I have put together a list of scotches that are inexpensive staples in my collection.

A note regarding the pricing. Some bottles on this list may be more than 50$ due to extreme variations in the pricing of alcohol in various regions. Variations in taxes mostly cause this. I have done my best to estimate the average price in most states and use that to make the guide. For this reason, I have chosen to omit the prices when discussing the Scotch whiskies.

Updated January 2017

and now onto the list
[Read more…] about The Best Scotch Under 50$

Review: Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2017

By Jesse Proulx on 2017-01-26 0

Jim Murray is the foremost authority on Whisky. He has been a full-time Whisky writer and reviewer for 25 years. His yearly book is an authoritative source for Whisky reviews. His book covers the best scotches as well as fantastic Whiskies from around the world.

This book should be considered a tool rather than a traditional book. The first few pages cover some general information about how to interpret the information in the reviews section and a Whiskey tasting guide. The following section includes Jim Murray’s awards for the year. In 2016 the number one spot was awarded to Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye, which is an inexpensive Canadian Rye Whisky. The award made the news in Canada. The product was flying off the shelves. I had to wait three months before I could get my hands on some. The 2017 award was again to a North American Rye Whisky. Booker’s Rye 13 years which I have not yet had the pleasure or trying.

The rest of the book contains all the reviews, divided by region and distillery. Jim Murray gives a numerical score to each Whisky and has a short (one sentence to a few paragraph) description. This book has so many reviews that I have been unable to find a single Whisky that I have ever tasted that was not on the list. I always keep it close when I go shopping for scotch to decide what new things to try.

Will you be able to find something Jim Murray forgot of his list? pick up your copy today!

Pro: Small format makes it great to bring around when you go shopping for scotch, This book covers most Whisky in existence in the world.

Cons: Small printing, little other text than the Whisky reviews.

Overall review: Strongly recommend.

Update Jan 22

By Jesse Proulx on 2017-01-22 0

Hello again everyone,

the work on the site is well on track. I know it may not look that way just based on what you see changing on the website, but I assure you a lot of work is going on in the back-end setup.

You can expect to see some content starting to come up next week in preparation for the soft launch of February 5th. The goal for the soft launch is that have the core technology of the site finalized and have a few articles up. It will still be fairly empty but this will give us a chance to test all the functionality of the site with a smaller pool of users. The first edition of the monthly newsletter will be going out next week as well. If you have not yet taken the time to sign up for it, I would encourage you to do so by using the form at the top right side of the webpage.

The official launch is scheduled for February 25th and everything is on track so far. There is still a lot of work to be done.

Thank you and have a great day.