Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Feb 2, 2012, 6:59 am
For the Scotch whisky lover there’s one event that pops up early in the calendar that gives the perfect excuse for a bit of a special dram or three – Burns Night. On and around the birthday of Robert Burns … Continue reading >>
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Jan 25, 2012, 6:13 am
We look forward to new releases at TWE Towers just like everyone else and when Balvenie announced an online unveiling of their newest dram, along with tasting packs for us to follow on at home, me and Tim of this … Continue reading >>
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Dec 21, 2011, 5:32 am
[Following on the first part of Tim's write-up of his trip to Midleton, we jump straight back in with talk of the new expressions from Irish Distillers.] We’re back in the Distillers Cottage at the Old Midleton distillery, where Irish Distillers’ … Continue reading >>
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Dec 18, 2011, 2:05 pm
There’s been a few great whiskies this year, many of them Irish and some classics from independent bottlers (including a few zingers from our good selves, I must add immodestly).  So this is not my Whisky of the Year – there’s just too … Continue reading >>
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Dec 14, 2011, 10:13 am
In early May, TWE Blog was one of a small group of highly-privileged whisky folk invited to attend a special event at the Midleton distillery in Cork. Although the invite mentioned the launch of the Midleton Single Pot Still releases, … Continue reading >>
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Dec 8, 2011, 6:15 am
Despite our name we’re not all about whisky here at TWE. I’ll admit that we all rather like the odd dram, but we’re nothing if not versatile drinkers. I’m a big fan of gin in all its various forms, Tim … Continue reading >>
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Nov 23, 2011, 1:57 pm
We’re rather fond of Compass Box’s Last Vatted Malt, having received a bottle a few days for approval, but I’ve been waiting for something else – The Last Vatted Grain. I’m a big grain whisky fan, ever since I did … Continue reading >>
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Nov 22, 2011, 12:20 pm
Dateline: 22nd November 2011.  Time: 11.59pm. Venue: A secret location in London.  There’s going to be a raucous party this evening – a sort of ‘pre-wake’, if you will (don’t worry, all will become clear).  A fancy Soho joint will be flashmobbed by a … Continue reading >>
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Nov 11, 2011, 12:32 pm
The folks at Balvenie like keeping busy. After a summer of random events they’ve hunkered down as we approach the end of the year and have done that which we know them for most – made some excellent whisky. Not … Continue reading >>
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Oct 28, 2011, 7:22 am
Close on the heels of the Diageo Special Releases (no, we don’t have any Port Ellen left) came the surprise announcement of the winners of this years awards in Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible. The big one that everyone always wants to know about is the top whisky – Jim’s Best Whisky in the World....
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Oct 21, 2011, 12:30 pm
There are some things that are constant in this world – death, taxes, the revival of Big Brother for yet another year despite no-one admitting to watching it, my inability to write one word where I can shoe-horn in five of them; and the yearly Special Releases from drinks giant Diageo. With 28 di...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Oct 20, 2011, 8:22 am
Despite the Whisky Show taking up much of our time at TWE over the last few months, we still found time to organise our regular tastings down at our Vinopolis shop. One of the perks of my position is blagging my way into these and September was a busy one, with three tastings. There’ll be
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Oct 10, 2011, 6:53 am
The Whisky Exchange Whisky Show may be over for another year, but this week is far from done. We were honoured to be the opening event of this year’s London Cocktail Week, running through this week and building on the success of last year with even more events, even more bars and a whole host
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Oct 3, 2011, 1:36 pm
A ripple of excitement went through the whiskey world last week when it was revealed that Pernod Ricard’s Irish Distillers Ltd, owners of the Midleton complex, were launching a cask strength version of arguably the distillery’s greatest brand: Redbreast 12 year old, a single pot still (as we ha...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Sep 22, 2011, 5:35 am
There’s a new entry to the whisky festival calendar this year, courtesy of the chaps at Connosr and some of their musical chums – The Pure Festival. It’s a twist on the regular whisky festival format, mixing drams with music and looking to drag in music fans new to whisky and whisky fans to tr...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Sep 19, 2011, 12:40 pm
This week we welcome back TWE Vinopolis’s Duncan Ross to tell us about one of our recent tasting events. Take it away Duncan… As you travel north from Perth on the winding A9 you will pass through some of the most beautiful scenery in Scotland. The quaint town of Pitlochry and the unmissable sig...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Sep 15, 2011, 12:19 pm
Another week and some more news from The Whisky Exchange Whisky Show… First up is that our last masterclass is now on sale. Whyte & Mackay master blender Richard ‘The Nose’ Paterson will stop throwing whisky at people at their stand for an hour on Friday evening to host a deconstruction tastin...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Sep 6, 2011, 12:48 pm
Autumn is a special time of year in the world of American whiskey. With the hot summer done, the distilleries knuckle down and push their various special releases for the year out of the door. Despite there being shortages in the USA of various whiskeys at the moment we’ve managed to get our hands...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Sep 2, 2011, 11:57 am
As we get closer to our marvellous TWE Whisky Show (which is scarily only five weeks away) there will be a lot more information appearing about the things that we’re going to be doing, as they all click into place. The latest bit of clicking is that we’re going to be running a bar. That
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Aug 26, 2011, 1:11 pm
It’s with great regret that we must announce that the Port Askaig 17 year-old – Speciality Drinks’ superb mystery single Islay malt which became the whisky version of a soundtrack
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Aug 24, 2011, 8:03 am
[This is Part 4 of Billy's trip around the Inver House distilleries.  If you haven't already, you should check out his scribblings from Balblair, Pulteney and Speyburn] After leaving Speyburn we hacked back over to Elgin to find our hotel, not knowing what to expect – the usual hotel that the Int...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Aug 15, 2011, 10:49 am
[This is the third instalment of Billy's trip around the Inver House distilleries.  If you haven't already, check out his visits to Balblair and Pulteney] The next stop on our tour of the Inver House distilleries was Speyburn, which someone had foolishly decided to site in Speyside, quite a long w...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Aug 12, 2011, 1:55 pm
We’re happy to announce that we not only have fantastic drinks and food lined up for the TWE Whisky Show but we now also have musical accompaniment thanks to the excellent Tim Hain. You can find more information, as we work out the schedule, over on the TWE Whisky Show website, but for now we’ll
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Aug 10, 2011, 1:01 pm
[Please welcome mouthy young upstart Toby Quirk to the blog. Toby is a Spiritual Advisor to our Vinopolis shop and most recent member of staff to discover that going on a trip to a distillery comes with certain blog related requirements...] About 6 months ago Penderyn Sales Manager Rob Whitaker vi...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Aug 5, 2011, 11:25 am
[This week we are joined by the TWE Vinopolis shop assistant manager and tastings organiser Chris Bolton, to talk us through our recent event at the hands of Balvenie's whisky doctors - Forrester and Whisky] Throughout the years that TWE has been running its humble sanctuary for mind and body insid...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Aug 1, 2011, 7:53 am
Leg 2 of my Inver House distilleries tour started off with a bit of a drive. Our departure point was Edderton, home of Balblair, and our destination was Wick, site of the Pulteney distillery. Scotland is a lot longer than you might expect (as the inhabitants pointed out when the BBC switched to a we...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Jul 29, 2011, 8:30 am
Another week and another masterclass has been announced for The Whisky Exchange Whisky Show in October. It’s a slightly different look at a whisky tasting to normal, instead matching up flavours between the different bottlings, looking for the taste of exotic fruits. The line-up features some incr...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Jul 25, 2011, 10:09 am
The lovely folk of Inver House Distillers (the Scottish production wing of International Beverages) recently invited me along to a trip around four of their distilleries with a bunch of international bloggers. Not being one to turn down distillery tours, especially those conducted by distillery mana...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Jul 20, 2011, 1:05 pm
Welcome to the concluding part of Tim F’s monumental write-up of this year’s Spirit of Speyside festival.  Foolhardy stalwarts can find the earlier episodes here, here and here. Neil, Joel and I had to bid farewell to our fellow travellers on Saturday night after the whisky quiz, as most of...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Jul 12, 2011, 11:46 am
This is the third part of Tim’s over-written journal from The Spirit of Speyside festival. Brave readers happening on this post for the first time may want to read Part 1 & Part 2 first.  Proper breaks should be taken between posts for refreshment and the avoidance of headaches. Saturday prov...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Jul 8, 2011, 11:52 am
This is just a quick post to point you to a more in depth post, but following on from the announcement of our first masterclass at this year’s Whisky Exchange Whisky Show we are proud to announce our second – The Gordon & Macphail timeline. The title doesn’t tell you all that much, but we
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Jul 5, 2011, 9:09 am
Welcome to part two of my epic jaunt around the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival.  Click here if you missed Pt. 1 (or if you just fancy reading it again). The following morning, after a fine fry-up in Linn House’s impressive dining room, our destination was Longmorn distillery, where we were a...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Jul 1, 2011, 5:49 am
A quick post today about a new bottling that we’ve just got in from our sister company, Speciality Drinks Ltd, as part of the Single Malts of Scotland range – an 11 year old Springbank. It was matured in a sherry cask, after being distilled in 1999 and bottled at the end of 2010. It’s
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Jun 27, 2011, 12:36 pm
Now and again, working in the whisky industry and trotting out the occasional overly verbose blog throws up some spectacular fringe benefits that fully justify the grinding rectal ache of the three hour daily commute required to trek between southeast and northwest London for work. The honour of bei...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Jun 22, 2011, 7:47 am
TWE Blog is proud to welcome the legendary Duncan Ross from TWE Vinopolis as a guest writer on the blog, with his first post being the following report on our recent charity Japanese whisky tasting: The events that occurred in Japan in March this year had repercussions that were felt around the...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Jun 16, 2011, 11:09 am
The chaps at Compass Box do seem to like keeping busy. After celebrating their 10th anniversary for most of last year they got their noses back to the grindstone and started work on some new whisky. We can happily say that the wait has not been in vain and we’ve got our hands on some
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Jun 15, 2011, 12:27 pm
The Whisky Exchange Vinopolis is hosting a very special tasting event next week. In light of the horrific events that devastated a proud and noble nation on the 11th March, we felt it only right to do what we do best and put on a tasting in aid of the British Red Cross Japan Tsunami Appeal!
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Jun 14, 2011, 7:12 am
Two bits of good news today, but in short: We are now delivering to Germany again Orders to Germany and Sweden will only get charged local duty – ie. they’re now even cheaper than before Since we had to stop sending orders to Germany four months ago we have been looking for ways to legally
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Jun 13, 2011, 12:06 pm
As mentioned a few posts ago we ran a tasting at the end of May to celebrate our shop’s ascension to the rank of Ardbeg Embassy. We were joined by Distillery Manager Mickey Heads and an audience of peat fans eager to try the Ardbeg range. Over to Toby from the shop for a report
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Jun 1, 2011, 10:31 am
Just arrived – our very special single sherry cask 1982 Port Ellen Royal Wedding Reserve!  We mentioned this in our earlier guide to Royal Wedding whiskies, so let’s try and give you an idea of what it’s all about with double tasting notes from myself and Billy. Port Ellen 1982 Royal Wedding ...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - May 31, 2011, 11:16 am
After years of quietly sipping away at their whiskies, and occasionally selling a bottle or three, we are very proud to announce that The Whisky Exchange at Vinopolis has been invited to become an official Ardbeg Embassy – a privilege only extended to a handful of specialist whisky retailers aroun...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - May 26, 2011, 1:06 pm
The folks over at William Grant & Sons like a bit of interesting marketing. Their portfolio stretches outside of the world of whisky, with both Hendrick’s and Sailor Jerry Rum on the books, and over the last few years they’ve been doing some interesting things. We’ve had locked boxes of whisky...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - May 25, 2011, 12:04 pm
[Please note that this post and its comments have been edited due to the threat of legal action]  It seems that my rant last week about the Isabella’s Islay, the “World’s most expensive whisky”, has come to the attention of LBC, the folk that are producing the product. I had just visited Ba...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - May 23, 2011, 7:58 am
We were honoured to welcome Meimi Sanchez from Havana Club at a recent tasting in TWE Vinopolis, and Hector from the shop has been good enough to write up the event for TWE Blog – any noticeable uplift in the general quality and elegance of the prose must be blamed solely on him.  Over to Hector...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - May 19, 2011, 6:58 am
[Please note that this post and its comments have been edited due to the threat of legal action] The whisky world does like producing premium products. We know all about that at TWE, with last year’s Trinitas release being a big event in our normally sleepy existence, but outside of the world of e...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - May 13, 2011, 10:18 am
As the new boy here at TWE Towers the time has come that I must reveal myself to the world via a blog post. Hello, I am Billy. I’m a former computer programmer turned whisky blogger who now has the semi-official job title of “Tim F’s Minion”. That’s enough about me, on to some drink
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - May 11, 2011, 2:09 pm
We’ve got some exciting news about The Whisky Exchange Whisky Show today on TWE Blog, as I’m announcing the first of this year’s Masterclasses!  And you’d better strap yourselves in, because it’s a stunner…  To maintain the standards of previous events and deliver the extraordinary l...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Apr 21, 2011, 12:56 pm
Hi Folks, Just a quick heads-up that tickets for The Whisky Exchange Whisky Show are now on sale from ticketsource.co.uk! Click here to get yours: http://www.whisky-show.com/whisky-show-2011-tickets  Don’t hang around, as advance interest has been very high for these.  The TWE Whisky Show is the...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Apr 15, 2011, 12:54 pm
Ok, we’re doing something a bit different today on The Whisky Exchange Blog – a collaborative post!  Yes, this particular blog on forty year-old whisky has been written by myself AND Sukhinder:  he’s supplied the history and the cold hard facts, while I’ve contributed a cod-philosophical ...
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Tim F. posted an article on The Whisky Exchange BLOG - Apr 4, 2011, 8:56 am
“Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.” Such was the (possibly apocryphal) advertisement with which Ernest Shackleton was said to have recruited team members for his unsuccessfu...
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