Glenfiddich has long sponsored the Piping Centre, a centre of excellence for the bagpipes and was also the principle sponsor for Piping Live.

While in Glasgow we decided to sample as many consumers on Glenfiddich as possible so samplings were set up each night at the Glasgow Concert hall, we also sampled at the Thistle and Millenium Hotels.

 Consumer tastings were held at the Bon Accord, Oran Mor, Ben Nevis and the Pot Still bars, all great supporters of single malt whisky, at the Bon Accord and the Pot Still bar we also laid on a Coopering demonstration with one of our coopers, Jake Roberts, who stunned the audience with a mixture of skill, noise and a running commentry on his demonstration.

Paul, the owner of the Bon Accord introduced me to a bottle of Amrut Fusion, a delightful whisky from India, this bottling could easily be mistaken for a Speyside Malt.

Our evening samplings at the concert hall would not have been possible without the help of Tam Gardiner, Tam is about to open his own whisky shop in Argyll Street directly opposite the Ben Nevis, his new venture will be called Tam`s Drams, I wish him every success.

Once again the Glasgow public played their part in making the whole week very enjoyable with their unique humour.

Can`t wait until next year.

Travelling and working this last week in Switzerland I noticed Swiss Single Malt on a drinks menu and decided I would have to try it, since then I have found a second Swiss produced whisky, notes and pictures of both below.

The nose was a little light, not offensive , slight sweetness with toffee notes, when warmed up a little I could detect a few green vegetable notes.

The taste was slightly spirity but there was a reasonable whisky flavour, it`s not something I would ask for right now but it could improve over the years if left to mature a little longer.

Hollen Single Malt

Whisky Castle Single Malt.

The Whisky Castle Single Malt was a Doublewood expression matured in two types of wood, traditional casks ex the scotch whisky industry, probably used exbourbons, and chestnut wood, there was a sour note on the nose but the flavour was presentable, Whisky Castle do a few other expressions, one using only materials sourced entirely from Switzerland including the oak it was matured in.

Whisky Castle Single Malt

Right now neither whisky is likely to break into markets outside of Switzerland and to be fair I`m not sure they want to but with time and the right casks they could easily improve the quality of their whiskies.

Heather had missed out on a trip round Islay with a few of our other ambassadors in April due to the Volcanic ash.

Islay is a wee bit quiet right now so we decided to visit the Orkney Distilleries instead and a few other Distilleries on the way north from Dufftown, home of the worlds most awarded single malt whisky.

So with the help of a few industry friends, Richard Patterson, Alan Winchester and Russell Anderson we did just that.

Dalmore was the first Distillery, quiet at the moment but very special and of course doing extremely well just now with quite a range of single malts, I purchased one through the shop , King Alexander III, having tasted it I had to have it, good job on this one Richard.

Our next stop was Old Pultney where we just happened to arrive at the Distillery when Malcolm, the manager, was just coming back from lunch with his boss Derek Sinclair, Malcolm very kindly showed us round the Distillery, love the wash still, it looks ike a divers helmet, he was also over generous and gave us both a bottle of 12 year old Pultney, brilliant!

We took the late afternoon ferry from Gills Bay to St. Margarets Hope, had a late. dinner with a few Scapa`s and Highland park`s just to get the feel for the place.

On the tuesday we had an appointment to see Russell Anderson,manager at Highland Park, I`ve known Russell for a few uears now but last time I visited HP he was elsewhere so Erik, His Brewer to us round. Russell evetually joined us having spent sufficient time pacifying his new health and safety people who were up visiting from the mainland.

He was very generous with his time and showed us the new dramming room and boardroom, very plush and a fitting addition to a very attractive Distillery. HP are about to bring out a 50 year old, very limited in number so watch this space.

In the afternoon we visited Mick Swannay at Scapa, a visit I arranged through Alan Winchester, general manager of the Chivas Distilleries and an old colleague, Alan and I used to live quite close to each other and often we would meet up the hill from Glenfiddich walking our respective dogs, many`s a chat we`ve had at 7 AM overlooking the Distilleries of Dufftown.

Mick toured us through an immaculate Scapa, freshly painted and just closed for an extended silent season. Scapa will increase it`s production when they start again, doubling to 16 mashes a week.

He tells me they are replacing the Scapa 14 with a 16 year old, can`t wait, I already like the 14, wholly matured in American, you get access to the naked flavours of the Distillery.

Below are a few pics from the trip.

The above two pics are Scapa Mashouse, top and Stillhouse, the still shape is odd and used to be aLomond Still but the rectifier column has been removed from the head of the still

The stunning coutyard at Highland Park.

Our Ambassador for New York, Boston and Washington area, Heather Greene at the Italian Chapel on Orkney.

The idea was to view the production at the Cooperage and then take them through a tasting of the new Glenfiddich Rich Oak, a new Glenfiddich expression we shared with you earlier this year.

The Cooperage is family owned and run by a father and his two sons, one to manage the cooperage and one the winery. We were all very impressed with the pride they take in the production of their casks from air dried wood to finished cask.

European oak has been used to mature Malt Whisky for more than a hundred years, probably as far back as the 1860`s. With sales of sherry falling back and whisky on the rise we can no longer access the sherry oak casks ex the sherry process.

We now have cooperages producing casks from new european oak, maturing a sherry for 18 to 24 months to season the cask before they are then sent to Scotland for use in the whisky industry, very costly but necessary for Glenfiddich as much of the complexity of flavour comes from the European oak.

Below are a series of pictures taken on my visit.

Staves being chosen and fitted into a building hoop.

It takes two Coopers to assemble the first stage of the cask

Casks being Toasted over open fires fuelled by leftover oak

Once soaked in water the casks are then slowly bent into shape and hooped

Their new cutting device used to form the groove within which the cask end comes to rest

The final galvanised hoops are applied by one of the Coopers

A final sanding of the cask

Brian Kinsman is only the sixth Malt Master in Glenfiddich’s long and distinguished history (the first was William Grant, who founded the distillery back in 1886) so we thought we’d do something special to commemorate his inaugural Vintage Reserve selection.

So, this year, we’ve handpicked some of the world’s most influential whisky bloggers to help Brian choose the 2010 Vintage Reserve via a live Twitter nosing and tasting.

On June 9^th, between midday and 2pm GMT, Brian Kinsman will conduct Glenfiddich’s first ever ‘virtual’ Vintage Reserve selection – as an online panel of judges choose their favourite from four pre-selected casks, all of which date back to 1978.

With 2010 marking Glenfiddich’s first virtual selection panel as well as Brian Kinsman’s inaugural Vintage Reserve, this year will certainly be one to remember.

Follow the Twitter discussion live on this page or log onto www.twitter.com and follow #GlenfiddichVR between midday and 2pm GMT on June 9^th.

Brian Kinsman, our Malt Master and myself in one of our favourite Warehouses

Prior to Whisky Live we launched Glenfiddich 40 year old in a series of presentations held in the art district of Shanghai, a Distillery tour was set up to showcase the materials and processes used to produce Scotlands best export, this of course included a coopering demonstration from Robert who certainly brought the whole tour to life with noise and dust but above all the art of coopering.

China has huge potential and although whisky is well down the pecking order I feel it is growing in strength and this weekend sees a new whisky bar opening called Tam o Shanter, we wish them well.

Our hosts were extremely friendly, enthusiastic and full of positive energy, our brand is in good hands.

Robert, our cooper, Sean and Alston, our China Ambassadors and myself

The Glenfiddich whisky bar through the warehouse door.

Robert on stage at whisky live

One in six canadians has Scottish heritage so canada is always a very interesting and rewarding market to visit,  we were lucky enough to get on a couple of morning TV shows and recorded interviews with Gourmet TV and ITV, a show recorded in Winnipeg and then put out over the internet.

We also visited one of the smallest settlements in Manitoba for a fairly exclusive tasting, audience of three people and we only covered two whiskies, the fifteen, a favourite of mine and a vintage 42 year old which was exceptional, the family we visited were the Prociws and the village was called Sandilands, remote and surrounded  by vast stretches of forest, I tried a Ukrainian dish there called Peroggies, delicious and a first for me, to my hosts Ken and Joanne, thank you for dinner.

I finished the trip with a night out in Toronto with friends and colleagues, there`s nothing quite like chinese food at 4 AM.

Attached is a picture of me at the Sandilands signpost, a product consultant tasting in Winnipeg and the Toronto Skyline from my hotel.

Although a few did not make it due to the volcanic ash we still had representation from China, Taiwan, South Africa, America, Sweden, France and the UK.

One of the highlights was an afternoon in one of our large warehouses nosing 150 samples of whisky from an arrangement of american and european oak casks.

This is an activity seldom seen or witnessed so to be part of an actual vatting that will be bottled, ( Batch 3099), made it all the more special.

The 18 year old is a vatting of 80% american oak matured whiskies and 20% european, a very classy whisky that ensures we remain the most awarded single malt whisky in the world.

below is a selction of pictures from the vatting session.

We also had a look at Chill Filtration as it seems to be a hot subject right now, a lot of our consumers think that chill filtration strips out flavour, we chill at plus 2 and take great care in getting the flow rate through the filter right. the ultimate test of course is flavour so we nose the whisky pre and post, our nosing panel has never picked up any differences.

I was also able to sample them on a few older variants such as the 40 year old, they seemed to enjoy it……

Read some of their whisky articles on caskstrength.net

Neil and Joel of Caskstrength.net

Stopped in at Lagavulin for a quick photograph given the blue skys, an unusual phenomenon for Islay.

Met up with a few friends at Ardbeg who coincidentally had samples of the lagavulin festival whisky, a sixteen year old wholly matured in oloroso casks, the sherry was very prominent and gave the lagavulin the complexity that it has long lacked. They also had the caol Illa 12 created for the festival, it tasted a wee bit spirity with hints of sherry.

Tried the bruichladdich Octomore, quadrupled peated at 131ppm phenols and 63.5 abv, very spirity still as it’s only five years old. Price £80

Ardbeg

The Ardbeg tasting we signed up for was run by Mike Heads, the Distillery Manager.

They produced a total of fourteen different Ardbeg bottlings from which the audience chose six for the session.

The whiskies were;

The Lord of the Isles, a 25 year old, pretty straightforward, well matured, peaty flavours cutting in after the typical Ardbeg spicyness, my least favourite (but still very good) of the six.

The second sample was a 16 year old single cask No 772 @ 55.7%. , fragrant and a spicy sweetness, my number three choice.

The third sample was a Single cask matured in new American Oak which was toasted, the cask No. was 1189. This worked really well with the new oak imparting maximum spicyness and vanilla, if we had tried this on the mainland with an unpeated the new oak would have overwhelmed the whisky, I think.

I placed this one in fifth place.

Our next two samples were both filled into European oak in 1975 and matured alongside each other for their entire maturation, despite that they were hugely different the first, cask no 1375 had strong vanilla and slight hints of sherry, and bottled at 54.2, the second, cask no 1378 was much better with a christmas cake flavour, a great balance beteen the sherry and the peatiness, bottled at 53.7 . This was my number one choice with the sister cask my number two.

The final sample was a 14 year old called the warehousemans choice. Bottled at 53.0 matured in first fill bourbon, sweet, spicy and well balanced versus the peat.

Beyond the sampling we tried Airigh nam Beist also known as big Beastie, bottled at 46, nice dram, well balanced and typical for Ardbeg.

Casks 1189 and 1190, both 1998 fillings were sold out within the first couple of hours of the festival as was their Supernova, a nine year old bottling @ 58.9 abv and 101 ppm phenols.

The first two sold at £130 and the Supernova at £90.

We had a fabulous day at Ardbeg, the people, the Distillery crew led by Mickey and the sunshine, all blended together to bring to an end a marvellous four days on Islay.

A stunning suny afternoon at Ardbeg

 The Islay Crew at Ardbeg

 A typical peat field on Islay