Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2024 i Whisky Magazine

For those who love getting their teeth into some juicy statistics, the start of 2024 has been a veritable buffet. First, to our canapés: the release of financial results from three of the biggest names in drinks. Pernod Ricard’s half-year results for 2023/24 showed 3 per cent drops in organic sales and organic profit, which it largely attributed to a €576 million (£493 million) hit from currency fluctuations in the US, Argentina, China, and Turkey. In its half-year results, Diageo reported an 11.1 per cent fall in operating profit and a 0.6 per cent drop in organic net sales. While it also referenced an “unfavourable foreign exchange impact”, the fall was largely due to a 23 per cent decline in sales in Latin America and the Caribbean, equating to US$310…

Each February, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), a trade organisation, delivers an economic briefing that offers detailed sales data for each spirits category. Every year for more than a decade, the underlying theme has been growth. Social media, traditional media coverage, and legislative measures that put liquor on equal footing with beer and wine all drove growth, even during the pandemic years, when people happily splurged on premium spirits. Then 2023 rolled around. First, the good news: spirits grew from 28.7 per cent of the market share revenue in 2000 to 42.2 per cent in 2023, beating out beer, which fell from 55.5 per cent in 2000 to 41.8 per cent. Vodka, always the top performer volume wise, clocked in at 74.9 million 9-litre cases, a…

When Rob Samuels, managing director of Maker’s Mark Distillery, talks about his grandparents buying Star Hill Farm in Loretto, Kentucky in 1952 and building a distillery there, he’s keen to add that his family had been making whisky in the state 160 years before that. Back then, farmers harvested their crop, sold what they could to make a living, and distilled the rest. Now, distillation is no afterthought. Today, Maker’s Mark produces 13 million original proof gallons and sources 48.25 million tons of corn and 11.8 million tons of wheat from its surrounding farmers. At that massive scale, it might sound like a fool’s errand to try to work with farmers on an individual basis to work out how to implement regenerative farming techniques to ensure the grains that go…

It is a pleasure and a privilege for us at Whisky Magazine to compile our list of inductees for the Hall of Fame each year. To do so is to catch a glimpse into the upper echelons of the whisky world — not in any materialistic sense, but in terms of knowledge. Those who grace the Hall of Fame are among the most knowledgeable in the industry, and the breadth of that knowledge is as great as its depth. Among our inductees this year we have welcomed master distillers, company founders, visitor experience managers, a whisky author and judge, a cooperage founder, and a brand ambassador. It is a fitting tribute to the fact that creating the very best whiskies is not the work of an individual but a diverse…

Headline sponsors – Brindiamo Group & Glencairn Crystal Studio Design – Sponsored by Hunter Luxury Headline sponsors The team behind Whisky Magazine launched the World Whiskies Awards in 2007 (now part of the wider World Drinks Awards) with the aim of judging and promoting the world’s best whiskies through a comprehensive annual tasting. The competition now has two strands: taste and design. To enter, whiskies must be available for purchase by the general public in bottles and conform to the criteria of a relevant entry category. Taste entries are blind-tasted by an expert panel of international judges including figures from the hospitality, media, retail, and drinks industries, alongside regional sub-panels. Entries are first judged to find the best in each category in each participating country and region; a global panel then…

Whisky fans around the world, pick up your Glencairn glasses and take out your tasting journals as Whisky Live’s 2024 events calendar picks up pace. Following Whisky Live London, the premier tasting event’s flagship show, on 22 and 23 March, the Whisky Live events calendar for 2024 is ramping up with events taking place across the globe in the coming weeks. First up will be Whisky Live Melbourne, taking place on 3 and 4 May. It is the first of six shows scheduled to take place in Australia this year. The event will include an array of top-shelf whiskies from new and established distilleries — including from Scotland, Ireland, Japan, and, of course, Australia — plus multiple classes focusing on individual whiskies and producers. Ticket holders will get a quality…

Before Spain forbade the export of bulk casks in 1986, Scottish distilleries were developing an alternative way to increase the supply of sherry-treated casks solely for whisky maturation: filling virgin casks with sherry for a year or two to absorb the wine. Two years later, under a broad ban against additives, the UK Scotch Whisky Act stopped paxarette or pax, a traditional sherry-suffusion treatment for spent casks in Scotland. Surreptitiously, the pax practice has crept back over the past decade as sherry casks incur appreciably higher costs, coupled with shrinking supply, forcing distilleries in new world whisky-producing countries to seek remedial solutions. Paxarette is the most recognised sherry cask treatment that recently lent meaning to whisky maturation. Paxarette’s etymological origin is found in the Pajerete region, neighbouring the modern sherry…

The Icons of Whisky is sponsored by DISTILLER SPONSORED BY GLENCAIRN CRYSTAL Heaven Hill Distillery Highly Commended Nearest Green Distillery CRAFT PRODUCER Balcones Distilling Highly Commended FEW Spirits VISITOR ATTRACTION Buffalo Trace Distillery Highly Commended Westland Distillery CAMPAIGN INNOVATOR Prohibition Collection Highly Commended Breckenridge Distillery BRAND INNOVATOR SPONSORED BY IPL PACKAGING 291 Colorado Whiskey Highly Commended Eagle Rare 25 INDEPENDENT BOTTLER Single Cask Nation MASTER DISTILLER/MASTER BLENDER SPONSORED BY BRINDIAMO GROUP Greg Metze, Old Elk Distillery Highly Commended Paul Hletko, FEW Spirits DISTILLERY MANAGER Marcia Likarish, Ironroot Republic Distillery VISITOR ATTRACTION MANAGER SPONSORED BY LARKFIRE Dee Ford, Angel’s Envy Distillery Highly Commended Phoebe Dawson, Westland Distillery VISITOR ATTRACTION TEAM The Team, Angel’s Envy Distillery Highly Commended The Team, Westland Distillery SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER Melanie Gourley, Westland Distillery Highly Commended Rachel Nally,…

As I turn my car northwest at Sligachan, under the shadow of the imposing Glamaig massif, I contemplate the reputation of Scotland’s famous Isle of Skye. Though most widely known for its spectacular landscape, for decades now Skye has also been the poster child of Scottish cuisine. Home to several destination restaurants, the isle has a track record of punching above its weight and has played a significant role in shifting the perception of Scotland being somewhere one visited despite the food, to a gastronomic destination in its own right. One of the key players in this success story is the famous Three Chimneys Restaurant at Colbost. Rising to prominence during the 34 years it was owned and operated by Shirley and Eddie Spear, the critically acclaimed restaurant with rooms…

Taster biographies Bethany Brown After studying English literature at university, Bethany worked as a journalist for regional newspaper groups before moving to the spirits industry. She was appointed as editor of Whisky Magazine in 2022, having previously edited its sister titles Gin and Rum. She is also editor of annual publication Scotch Whisky and chair of judges for the Icons of Whisky. Christopher Coates A member of the team since 2013 and a keen whisky drinker long before that, Christopher served as Whisky Magazine’s Scotch whisky editor before being appointed as editor in 2020. In 2022, he was named editor-at-large and now writes a regular column for this title, in addition to his role as a blind taster. He is also chair of judges for the World Whiskies Awards. THE…

Brand and Packaging Design Agency Sponsored by Blue Box Design JDO Rest of World An international agency spreading its creativity worldwide, JDO’s brand and packaging designs have been seen on big-name brands in the past year. In the whisky world, JDO is behind the rebrand of The Glenlivet, including the recent design of its ready-to-drink cocktail line Twist & Mix, and has also collaborated with Canadian whisky brand J P Wiser’s for its 2023 rebrand, and with Jefferson’s Bourbon Whiskey on Jefferson’s Ocean and Jefferson’s Tropics. Digital Agency Sponsored by Blue Box Design Elgin-based digital agency Northport has earned acclaim for its portfolio of work in the whisky industry. The agency’s collaboration with Dalmore led to a sequence of films showcasing the journey of the Dalmore Cask Curation series, resulting…