Catching Up on Friday (25 May 2018)

I'll try to get you up to speed in less than two minutes on the latest whisky news, rumours and interesting blog posts from the past week.

News

A brief summary of press releases and industry news from the world of whisky.

Kilchoman 11YO Feis Ile 2018

For this year's Feis Ile festival Kilchoman have selected casks 34,65,82 & 83 from 2007. There are only 744 bottles at cask strength of 55.5% and only available on the Kilchoman Open Day.

Source: Twitter Kilchoman

Lagavulin & Caol Ila Feis Ile 2018

The Lagavulin Feis Ile festival whisky is only available at the distillery.  The 18-year-old Lagavulin was personally selected by Iain McArthur and matured in a mixture of refill and rejuvenated American oak hogsheads and ex-bodega European oak butts. Bottled at natural cask strength (53.9%) with notes of ripe and dried berries, classic Lagavulin smoke and notes of coffee and chocolate on the nose, it will retail for £130.

The Caol Ila festival bottling has been matured in refill American oak hogsheads and rejuvenated European oak butts. Bottled at natural cask strength, with a limited edition run of 2,496 bottles at 58.2% ABV and priced at £100.

Source: Twitter Lagavulin

Gordon & Macphail Discovery range

Independent bottler Gordon &Mapchail presented a new part of its revised portfolio, Discovery range. The new range is organised into three flavour groups: smoky, sherry and bourbon. The whiskies aim at the beginning single malt drinker and will feature either a vintage or an age statement. The first four expressions originate from Balblair, Tormore, Caol Ila and Miltonduff.

Source: Press release Gordon & Macphail

Method and Madness Hungarian virgin oak finish & port pipe single cask

Irish Distillers added two new whiskeys to its experimental range. One is a Midleton whiskey finished in Hungarian virgin oak, the other one is a 28-year-old single cask drawn from ruby port single cask.

Source: Master of Malt

Rumours

Some exciting whispers we heard through the barley. True or not. Alas, nothing to report!

Interesting reads, sees and hears

• Richard Woodard - Million Dollar Macallans: The Inside Stories (scotchwhisky.com)
• Whiskysponge - New Macallan distillery not as good as being on MDMA (whiskysponge.com)
• Becky Paskin - Inside Macallan's ground-breaking distillery (scotchwhisky.com) 
• Mark Gillespie - Memories of an Irish whiskey legend (whiskycast.com)
• Whisky Advocate - How one blender works with both peated and unpeated Scotch (whiskyadvocate.com)