By Richard Thomas Rating: B- When it comes to talk of shortages and no age statement (NAS) whiskeys, the croakers out there miss most of the real points and even manage to obscure them, as croakers often do. For example, one common misunderstanding is that when a bottler, whether it be a Scottish one like Wemyss Malts or an American ...

By Kurt Maitland As the Master Blender for Diageo’s Johnnie Walker, Dr. Jim Beveridge has access to one of the most extensive collections of single malt and grain whiskies on the planet. His creations run from recent Johnnie Walker releases like the Explorers’ Club Collection and his re-imagining of an old classic, Johnnie Walker Double Black, to individual blends that ...

By Richard Thomas Clynelish, one of the distillery’s listed with Diageo’s “Classic Malts” series, is set to close for 10 months next year, when the distillery will undergo extensive renovation and maintenance. This work is supposedly a separate (and presumably smaller) project from the £30 million expansion previously proposed for Clynelish, but later shelved by Diageo when the British drinks ...

Ballantine’s, ranked as the second-best selling blended whisky in the world and the top-seller in Europe, has launched a new expression, Ballantine’s Hard Fired. The namesake process for Hard Fired Scotch starts with the individual selection of American oak barrels by the wood management team. The barrels are then sent to skilled craftsmen at the cooperage to char them for ...

Whiskey’s Top Halloween Horrors By Richard Thomas As a rule whiskey experts avoid, to quote H.P. Lovecraft, “ye liveliest awfulness” in their writings. The tendency to put the most spotlight on the best stuff is natural enough, but at The Whiskey Reviewer we take pride in spending time in telling readers what they should not drink as well as what they should. ...