Archive for the 'Opinions' Category

I helped pick a cask of whisky. Don’t buy it.

Sunday, January 13th, 2008

When was the last time you ever heard me say that?
First off, let me say it’s not that the whisky I helped to pick is bad. In fact, I think it’s quite good. It’s just that I think there’s one even better. And if you are on a limited budget (these whiskies are fairly expensive), […]

News clip blunder #1 for 2008

Sunday, January 6th, 2008

If you’ve been following my blog last year, you’ll know I gave several examples where writers for newspapers or magazines (some of them highly regarded) wrote articles on whisky that contained blatant errors. It was clear that they didn’t know what they were writing about.
We all make mistakes and I’m willing to allow some latitude, but […]

What’s in store for 2008?

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008

Welcome to 2008 everyone. The whisky industry is booming. Distilleries are working at full capacity. New distilleries and new warehouses are being built.
But guess what? None of this is going to help us (the consumer) in 2008. All this will be great in a decade or two, but demand out-stripping supply in the short term is […]

$54,000 for a 60 year old Macallan?

Monday, December 10th, 2007

Well, it’s pretty obvious that there are people out there with far too much money to spend.
On Saturday, Christie’s hosted the first spirits auction in New York since Prohibition. This is great news! It’s about time!
The highlight of the auction was a 1926 Macallan, bottled in 1986. (That would make it 60 years old, not […]

Three things that really frustrate me: Part 3

Monday, November 26th, 2007

This is something that really frustrates me. Far too many times, there are writers doing stories on whisky for big name newspapers and magazines and they keep writing things that are incorrect or very misleading. Sometimes, it seems obvious that the writer doesn’t even like whisky.
This happens fairly frequently (i.e., a few to several times a […]

Your Islay dream home awaits you

Thursday, November 22nd, 2007

This is all good stuff: donate about $50 to a good cause, and have a chance to win your own dream home on Islay, in addition to other cool prizes.
The contest is called “Spot the whisky barrel.” Basically, here’s how it works. A whisky barrel (empty, sorry) is going to be dropped by plane off of […]

Feedback on “Things that really frustrate me”

Tuesday, November 20th, 2007

In a recent posting, I opined how I feel like I’m in prison here in the U.S. because many whiskies are not imported here. One of the deterrents is that the bureaucratic red tape makes it difficult for whisky companies to import their whiskies.
Mark Reynier, Managing Director of Bruichladdich, sent me a note with his perspective […]

Three things that really frustrate me: Part 2

Friday, November 16th, 2007

Another thing that I just don’t understand is when whisky companies launch a new whisky but don’t send whisky writers (i.e., people like me) a press release and a review sample. This is one of the smartest things they can do. How can we write about their whisky if we don’t know anything about it […]

Three things that really frustrate me: Part 1

Wednesday, November 14th, 2007

The last time I checked, the United States was still the biggest whisky market in the world. So why do I feel like I’m in prison?
I constantly get press releases about new whiskies.  Far too many times, when I ask the sender if any of the whiskies are coming to the U.S., they tell me “no.”
For […]

WhiskyFest New York highlights

Thursday, November 1st, 2007

I’m slowly recovering from WhiskyFest New York, which Malt Advocate magazine hosted this past Tuesday night. As you probably already know, it’s my magazine (and event) so I was very busy that night. My primary goal at WhiskyFest is to make sure everyone else is happy and having a good time, but I did manage to […]