John Mac Lellan Joins Kilchoman Distillery Team

Great news...we've just been told that John MacLellan, Distillery Manager at Bunnahabhain for the last 12 years, is leaving to step into the new General Manager position at Islay's newest distillery, Kilchoman.

John takes up the exciting position on the 3rd of May and Leonie and I wish him all the best for the future.

Well done John! Keep an eye on our cask of Kilchoman!

Click here for the Kilchoman Distillery website.

Slainte

David and Leonie

New Queen of the Moorlands Bottlings Chosen for Islay Festival of Malt and Music 2010

Last Friday night I met up with Gordon Richards, Jane Jervis and Adrian Shufflebotham to nose, taste and to ultimately select the next whiskies to be part of our Queen of the Moorlands range of Rare Cask whiskies....and what a treat it turned out to be.

We were to taste 4 whisky samples and select whiskies to be bottled in time for the forthcoming Islay Festival of Malt and Music and for the tastings that we do there. One of the whiskies would also go on to be our Queen of the Moorlands bottling especially for the Festival. As far as we know, we are the only independent bottler to bottle a whisky especially for the Feis Ile.

We decided that we would be bottling 3 out of the 4 whiskies that we tasted. All will be bottled at natural cask strength, without any colouring or chill filtering. They will be bottled straight from the cask as always. These whiskies are bottled from one single cask and are therefore extremely limited in number. There will be around 200 to 300 bottles of each whisky, and when it has gone, the flavour unique to each individual cask will never be repeated. Each bottle will be hand labelled and individually numbered.

One of the three whiskies was chosen as our Islay Festival Bottling 2010, and this was to be the Bunnahabhain 1997 heavily peated from a sherry hogshead...wonderful stuff!

Queen of the Moorlands Rare Cask New Bottlings 2010 Tasting Notes

1. Queen of the Moorlands Rare Cask Bowmore 1999 10 years old

Nose: Sweet, light and heathery at first with slowly building peat

Palate: Again sweet but incredibly smokey with a very oily mouthfeel

Finish: Smooth, medicinal, peaty and very long

Max 200 bottles available. £49.99 per bottle

2. Queen of the Moorlands Rare Cask Laphroaig 1996 13 years old

Nose: Light peat smoke followed by red fruit and spice

Palate: Very sweet, phenolic, bonfires, oily mouthfeel

Finish: Huge peat smoke aftertaste that lasts forever

Max 200 bottles available. £59.99 per bottle

3. Queen of the Moorlands Rare Cask Bunnahabhain 1997 12 years old Islay Festival Bottling 2010

Nose: Classy and rich with raisins, smoke and the seashore

Palate: Smooth with vanilla, olorosso sherry notes, fruit and nut chocolate, raisins and hints of the sea, oh and lots and lots of peat smoke

Finish: Rich and clean, the sweetness and peat smoke lingers for an age

Max 300 bottles available. £59.99 per bottle

All of these whiskies are still in cask at the moment, awaiting to be bottled shortly, but if you would like to reserve stock, please don't hesitate to contact us to secure a bottle or two of these fine drams. The Bunnahabhain in particular will sell very quickly.

We don't ship overseas but if you live on Islay or if you are visiting the island during the festival, we can take payment and arrange to deliver to you between the 22nd May and June 5th.

Don't forget we'll be holding our whisky tastings during the festival week where Adrian, Jane and I will be happy to talk you through the new whiskies.

Slainte

David

New Queen of the Moorlands Bottlings with the Islay Festival of Malt and Music 2010 on the Horizon

Dates for the diary:

Tuesday 13th April - Single Malt Whisky Tasting

The Wine Shop, Leek. A chance to taste through the range of The Queen of the Moorlands Single Malt Whiskies. Please contact us ASAP to reserve your place. 01538 382 408. Please see below for more info.

Saturday 22nd May to 29th May - Islay Festival of Malt and Music 2010

Once again we will be holding whisky tastings to showcase our Queen of the Moorlands Single Malt Whiskies, including our very own Islay Festival Bottling 2010. Please contact us ASAP to reserve places on these events or to pre-order bottles. More info below.....

Saturday 22nd May 2010 is an important date in the diary at The Wine Shop in Leek, because that is the first day of Feis Ile, the Islay Festival of Malt and Music. It is hard to believe that in 11 or so weeks time, we'll be on Islay in much warmer weather, and if the last three years are anything to go by, glorious sunsets at 11.30pm. I cannot begin to describe how beautiful Islay is at that time of year, and I for one, cannot wait to be there.

We shall be holding a series of whisky tastings during the festival. Venue, dates and ticket prices are to be confirmed but usually they take place in Bowmore. We'll post details nearer the time but if you would like to express interest in attending, please contact me ASAP to reserve a place.

Usually, we taste through 4 or 5 whiskies in each session and typically, there will be around 50 guests in attendance at each event. Each whisky will be from our very own, award winning Queen of the Moorlands Rare Cask range of Single Cask Single Malt Whiskies and it is a chance for the consumer or collector to taste and secure a bottle or two of these incredibly rare delights. Guests also get a chance to meet up with the people who select our whiskies from cask samples, our panel of lucky customers who form our whisky committee.

With all this in mind we've only got a few weeks to finalise our latest Queen of the Moorlands Rare Cask Single Malt whiskies, and samples have started to arrive. All of our Rare Cask whiskies are selected and approved by our whisky committee, a dedicated band of hardcore whisky enthusiasts.

This Friday, 26th February, some of the committee members are meeting up and we are going to taste some whiskies, some of them will hopefully become our new bottlings. I'll be posting the results and tasting notes here. If you see a dram you fancy, please don't hesitate to contact me as, although the whiskies are still in cask, the popularity of our bottlings means that they will pre-sell quite quickly. As always, anybody on Islay wishing to reserve a bottle or two should contact me ASAP and I will save the stock for you and deliver to you between Friday 21st May and Saturday 5th June.

The Whiskies that we will be sampling this week are as follows:

Bowmore (Islay) 1999 if bottled will retail at £49.99

Laphroaig (Islay) 1996 if bottled will retail at £59.99

Bunnahabhain (Islay) 1997 if bottled will retail at £59.99

All of our Rare Cask whiskies are bottled at natural cask strength with no chill-filtration and no colouring. Each bottle is hand labelled and individually numbered and presented in it's own gift tube. There are usually a maximum of around 200 bottles per edition making them highly collectable

We are hoping that we will be able to bottle at least a couple from the list above but we are also looking for one very special dram to become our bottling specifically for the Islay Festival of Malt and Music. This will be our third Festival bottling, the previous being our Rare Cask Port Ellen 1982 (2008 Festival) and Rare Cask Laphroaig 1996 (2009 Festival). As far as we are aware, we remain the only Independent Bottler to bottle a whisky especially for the Feis.

For enthusiasts closer to The Wine Shop in Leek, we'll be holding a whisky tasting on Tuesday 13th April, and this will be the first time that the new whiskies will be on show. Tickets for this event will be on sale at just £10 per head, please contact us ASAP if you would like to reserve tickets. There are only 20 places at this event as we will be holding at in shop.

If you would like any information about our whisky tasting events, new bottlings or how to join our whisky committee please don't hesitate to get in touch.

We hope to see you at Feis Ile 2010!

Slainte

David

01538 382 408

email: david@rarecask.com

PS On the angling front, I will be joined by Stoke - on - Trent's 'vital spark', none other than Glen Pointon from Oshbonk and we'll be fishing Lochs Gorm, Skerrols, Ballygrant and Finlaggan. There's never a dull moment with Glen as anyone who has had the pleasure if meeting him will declare, so I should have plenty to blog about in June!