Branch to Barrel: The Cooperage
by Joel Harrison
Having seen a giant American white oak tree hand picked by a local lumberjack and delivered to a stave mill to be carefully sawn up, I stayed on the journey of this new-wood to see these newly harvest planks taken directly to one of the most important places in the whole of the whisky making process: the cooperage.
By Ian Millar
A lot of people still believe you can only enjoy a single malt whisky after a meal, the way you might enjoy a brandy or cognac. But it struck me recently that most people enjoy a whisky with food over the holidays or on Burns Night, so why don't we enjoy whisky and food more often?
A Burns Night supper is a traditional affair, celebrating the life of the Scottish poet with time-honoured dishes of haggis, neeps and tatties and, of course, a dram of your favourite single malt. But what about other food pairings?
Arriving in America
by Joel Harrison
America is a land of dreams, a place where you can ignite an idea with a mixture of passion and hard work. It is a place that incubates business, art, creative concepts and provides an environment where success can be fast and be global. It is a country where slow growth isn't thought about, where achievement is expected at break-neck speed.
A Journey Begins
by Joel Harrison
Soon, we'll be releasing a brand new expression. To give you a peek behind the scenes, we sent Joel Harrison to the USA to document the journey of an American Oak cask.
It is no secret that single malt Scotch whisky is made from just three ingredients: water, barley and yeast. This trilogy of naturally occurring elements are combined in perfect harmony to give us what is known in the Scotch whisky business as ‘new make spirit’, a clear yet surprisingly tasty younger brother to what eventually graduates, after a minimum of three years in oak casks, into ‘whisky’.
