Peter Ranscombe takes a light-hearted romp through the latest whisky news.
GLEN Ord distillery at Muir of Ord near Dingwall is today reopening its visitors’ centre for its Singleton brand.
Chef Tony Singh was on hand earlier this week to launch the centre, which is part of owner Diageo’s wider £185 million investment in its tourist facilities.
Talisker on Skye and Caol Ila on Islay are also getting a lick of paint this summer.
Singh created a menu to pair with “The Singleton of Glen Ord Celebratory” whisky, a special-edition bottle to commemorate the opening.
Cail Bruich’s whisky ‘tea and cake supper’
Staying with chefs: forget “tea and cake” for your supper – Glasgow’s Michelin-starred chef, Lorna McNee, has a new take on the tradition.
She’s created petit-fours to be served at the end of a meal at her Cail Bruich restaurant alongside teas from Jing Tea and four whiskies from The Macallan.
The distiller has chosen its Double Cask 12 year old, Sherry Oak 18 year old, Sherry Oak 25 year old, and M Decanter for the partnership.
Each whisky is paired with a tea, ranging from Phoenix Honey Orchard Oolong to an Indian chai blend.
Glengoyne tees up film with caddie
As the Scottish Open climaxes this weekend, Glengoyne has partnered with elite golf caddie Fanny Sunesson to “celebrate the importance of patience in the worlds of whisky and golf”.
Distillery manager Robbie Hughes stars in an online video alongside Sunesson, who has been a caddie for more than 25 years.
The distillery has the slowest distillation rate in Scotland.
Glengoyne is the official whisky sponsor for the Scottish Open, which has been taking place this week at The Renaissance Club at Gullane in East Lothian.
Drinkly founder joins Caskshare
Drinks industry veteran John Robertson has been named as the new managing director at online single whisky cask marketplace Caskshare.
Robertson began his whisky career at Whyte & Mackay, before moving into beer with Kingfisher and Innis & Gunn.
He also set up Drinkly, an online delivery service for independent bottle shops, which morphed into Shoply, offering the same service for convenience stores.
Earlier in his career, Robertson also won a Saltire Fellowship, which included entrepreneurship training at Babson College in the United States.
Tullibardine says ‘join our club’
If you like a lot of chocolate in your whisky, join our club – as the old jingle may not have gone.
But Tullibardine in Perthshire is indeed launching its own “Custodian Club” for very important people (VIPs).
Members will pay a one-off fee of £60 to join the club, with the first 100 receiving a bottle of Tullibardine 500 Sherry Cask Finish single malt, which sells for just under £40 online.
VIPs will then get “exclusive discounts at the distillery, first access to new releases, and a say in new bottlings, among many other benefits”.
A master of her craft
And finally, finishing where we started with Diageo, where its master blender, Maureen Robinson, is retiring after 45 years in the whisky industry.
Robinson studied pharmacy at the University of Strathclyde before joining The Distillers Company in 1977, which later merged with Guinness to form Diageo.
Distillers spotted that she had “the nose” and she spent nine years developing her sense of taste and smell to become a blender.
Robinson was made a keeper of the quaich in 2012 and was inducted into the Scotch whisky hall of fame in 2019.
Read more news and reviews on Scottish Field’s food and drink pages.
Plus, check out Blair Bowman’s whisky column in the August issue of Scottish Field magazine.
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