The Whiskey Reviewer A World of Whiskey, Poured Every Weekday

By Richard Thomas Rating: C Whyte & Mackay are a Glasgow label, have been in the scotch whiskey business since 1844, and are now owned by an Indian conglomerate. This is another one of those labels that, like VAT 69, were famous several decades ago (Shackleton took the stuff with him to Antarctica, and you can see boxes of Whyte ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: C- Johnnie Walker is one of the most recognizable labels in scotch whiskey, as it is distributed to virtually every country in the world (including quite a few Islamic ones as well), so it needs no introduction. Johnnie Walker Black Label, however, might need a little further explanation. Walker’s Black Label is one of the more ...

By Richard Thomas When our review of Grant’s Family Reserve was posted on Grant’s official Facebook fan page, one of the comments received mocked us for labeling Grant’s as “whiskey.” This is because Grant’s label reads “Grant’s Blended Scotch Whisky,” and this website defaults to spelling it as whiskey all of the time, and to some whiskey lovers a lot ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B- Named for its host town in Moray, Knockando means “Little Black Hill.” The distillery was build there in 1898, and while that is not a particularly aged date for a scotch distillery, it does mean that Knockando’s distillery was built at just the right time to become the first distillery in Scotland with electric lighting. ...

By Richard Thomas I’m sometimes surprised by how little so many lovers of whiskey know about distillation until they make their first visit to a distillery. Until that visit, distillation is an almost magical liquor-making process involving almost medieval equipment and ancient techniques. Distillation is an ancient process, but there is nothing magical about it. Instead, distillation is the science ...