Some Fantastic Douglas Laing Whiskies

As I scrolled through the pictures of my phone I saw this one that was made at the Whisky Ship in Lucerne. This picture shows me with Rick Drysdale who works for Douglas Laing (as the fast thinking ones among you may have already noticed).

Rick and me posing with some Douglas Laing Remarkable Malt Whiskies

 I totally forgot that I had this picture taken by my mate Pascal who attended the festival with me but as I saw it it instantly brought back good memories. We went to the Douglas Laing stand after attending a "Whisky Meets Wine" masterclass. We stopped there because I wanted to taste the recently released Rock Oyster Cask Strength which is a blended malt and belongs to a range called the Remarkable Regional Malts.

A blended malt or vatted malt as it was formerly known is a whisky that contains malt whisky (whisky that is made from malted barley) from different distilleries as opposed to a single malt which can only contain malt whisky from one single distillery. Douglas Laing created 4 blended malts which should all represent the typical style of a different whisky region. There is the Scallywag from the Speyside, the Timorous Beastie from the Highlands, Big Peat from Islay and Rock Oyster for the Islands.

Whisky Meets Wine Masterclass

Last saturday I had the pleasure to attend masterclass with the name "Whisky meets wine" at the whisky ships in Lucerne. The evening was hosted by Marcel Telser who is the owner of a whisky distillery in Liechtenstein, a tiny country next to Switzerland, and Jürgen Deibel who is an expert for spirits and a 40 years veteran in the whisky industry. Some of you may already know Jürgen Deibel because he was co author of one of the if not the single best book about the water of life - Michael Jackson: Whisky. Since I own a copy of this book I was quite excited to meet the man who wrote the chapter about distillation.

After travelling to Lucerne with my buddy Pascal we went to the whisky ships first and enjoyed a few drams. We went for some grain whisky because we wanted something light so we wouldn't overwork our palate. After an hour or so we went to the ship where the masterclass took place. It was all set up very beautifully. There was a total of 12 glasses at each place. 8 drams of whisky and 4 glasses of either sherry or wine.

Puni - The Italian Malt Whisky

Hi maltmates I hope you are all doing well. Last wednesday I've written that this weekend would be quite a whisky fueled one and I can tell you that it didn't disappoint. I got the chance to try a lot of new stuff which I'm going to tell you about so stay tuned for some new articles flying in. In todays post I want to tell you a little bit about two new whisky discoveries that I made last thursday when I travelled to Basel to meet up with a friend and to go to a whisky tasting. You can read more about the tasting in this article. The whiskies that I am going to talk about were quite special because they aren't produced in Scotland but in Italy. The distillery that made these whiskies is called Puni and it's quite new, actually the whiskies I had were only the second batch of Italian whisky ever produced, the first batch was bottled in October 2015.

The Postman Has Been Busy

Yesterday the postman dropped a rather nice delivery at Whisky-U headquarter. I got three samples from the Benromach distillery: The 10 years old, the 15 years old, and the brand new 35 years old.
Next Thursday I will take part in the #Benromach35 tweet tasting. On March 10th from 19:00 GMT me and other whisky people on twitter will write our thoughts on this three expressions. You can follow the event by using the hashtag #Benromach35
Thanks a lot to the Benromach Distillery and to Steve Rush from The Whisky Wire for giving me the chance to be a part of this unique night.

Busy Whisky Week Ahead

This week is gonna be quite a whisky fueled one. Tomorrow I will travel from Zurich to Basel where I will meet up with a friend. We will then go to a whisky tasting where you can try whatever you want out of 50 different whiskies from all over the world. The after I will go back to my beloved Zurich (people from Zurich and Basel usually don't like each other) where I will work in the whisky shop. Just a day later me and one of my highschool mates will make the trip to Lucerne where we will go to the whisky ships. This is one of the biggest whisky events in Switzerland. We will attend a masterclass with the topic 'whisky meets wine' hosted by one of the greatest german speaking whisky experts, Jürgen Deibel. I am really looking forward to this and I am already very excited.
Next thursday will be another special whisky day but you will have to wait a little bit until I will break the news.
I hope you all have great whisky plans too and as always enjoy responsibly.
Slàinte mhath, U

Hosting My First Whisky Tasting

Last saturday I had the chance to get a unique experience on my whisky adventure. My boss couldn't work this Saturday so I had to work friday and saturday. On friday morning as I was on my way to work I got a call from my boss. He got a request to host a private tasting on saturday afternoon in the shop and asked me if I was willing to host it. Of course I was very excited and quickly agreed. I thought it would be very interesting but I was a little bit nervous because this would be the first time I would

The guests were a group of 4 Germans. One of them recently moved to Zurich and his 3 friends came here to visit him. They weren't really experienced with whisky but they told me that they frequently went to wine tastings. They were really nice and they made it easy for me because they were very interested in all the steps of the whisky making process, different types of casks and the different styles of Scotch and whisky from all over the world.

Here are the whiskies that we tasted:

- Benrinnes 1998-2013 Old Malt Cask bottled by Douglas Laing, 14 yo, cask no. 9631, 50% ABV, matured in a refill sherry cask
-Tomintoul 1989-2005 bottled by Scott's Selection, 56.9% ABV
-Edradour 1998-2014 Sherry Decanter, 14yo, cask no. 2124, 58.2% ABV
-Balmenach 1988.2015, bottled by Signatory Vintage for Helvetian Selection, 27 yo, cask no. 3240, 49.6% ABV, matured in a hogshead
-Glenturret 1986-2015. bottled by Signatory Vintage for Helvetian Selection, 29yo, cask no.302, 49.1% ABV, matured in a hogshead
-Cask Islay by A.D. Rattray, 46% ABV
-Laphroaig 1998-2014 Signatory Vintage unchillfiltered collection, cask no. 700357, 46% ABV, matured in a Sherry Butt


The Balmenach and the Glenturret were bottled exclusively for our shop by Signatory Vintage. I will thell you mor about them in another article.

The guests genuinely enjoyed all of them with the Glenturret being the unanimous favourite.

It has been a fantastic evening and I enjoyed it very much.  Thanks to my guests and a special thank to my boss marcel for all the trust he always puts in me.

Cheers, U