whisky

In the Name of the Fathers

Father’s Day was never a big deal in my family. I always assumed that my dad was the kind of man, like many of his generation, who shied from the spotlight of attention and felt uncomfortable with any notion of having a day wherein he could sit back, relax and be showered with gifts.

Secret Speyside

Longmorn, Caperdonich, Glen Keith, Braes of Glenlivet, four artisan producers from some of Speyside’s revered distilleries. Perhaps if the family had been sporting a measure from the Secret Speyside collection, I might have come into the fold a little sooner.

Suntory Whisky

For The Review, an audience with Mike Miyamoto, Ambassador for Suntory whisky, is to gain a portal to over thirty-nine years’ experience in the industry. Having undertaken everything from running a cooperage business to blending, and eventually running Japan’s most important whisky distilleries, Mike can be seen as an sensei of grain-based spirits in his own right. During the eighteenth century, the Japanese began to discover a taste for whisky, with small-scale production beginning in Japan around 1870. But Mike is keen to point out that the first commercial production was in 1924, with the opening of the country’s first distillery, Yamazaki, near Kyoto. Food and whisky are inextricably linked…

The Back Bar

In the first of a four-part series, the team at the fabled Rummer Hotel in Bristol will be reviewing a selection of whiskys from The Whisky Exchange. This issue, Chelsie Bailey leads Dan Vidowsky and Borbala Csorvasi in a tasting of the historic Glenfarclas 15 and 20 year old. “I should never have switched from Scotch to martinis”. Bogie was only 57 when he died. When he was sick, he was frequently visited by Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy who heard him speak the immortal words the night before his death. Obviously smoking killed him, not the sauce. Livers were issued during the 1900s, made only from carbon fibre, so…