At Glenfiddich we run an Artists in Residence programme and some years ago Stephanie Bourne from France had this idea to create a cask that was different in shape and designed to accelerate maturation by increasing the wood surface area ratio to the liquid inside the cask.

Six years later the liquid is fantastic but the Scotch Whisky Association will not allow us to call it whisky as it was not matured in a traditional shaped cask, hence it`s name Eau de Robidou named after our spring water source at the Distillery, the Robbie Dhu spring.

The nose and taste is very much like a whisky matured in rich sherry oak casks.

Below are pictures of the casks used and also a picture of the final product resting on top of a traditional shaped cask.

 Eau de Robidou

 In the last few weeks Wm Grant and Sons received the coveted title of Distiller and International Distiller of the year at the International Wines and Spirits Competition, one of the most prestigious awards in the drinks industry.

Glenfiddich Single Malt picked up awards as part of the overall Wm Grants entry, winning a `Best in Class` Gold for it`s 15 and 30 year old expressions and a Gold for our 40 Year old.

 The week before Glenfiddich picked up the trophy for the best Single Malt Whisky at the International Spirits Challenge ( Glenfiddich 40 year old ) as well as a Gold for the 12 and 18 year old expressions.

 A great two weeks for our company and Glenfiddich in particular confirming our position as `The Worlds most awarded Single Malt Whisky`

The IWSC and ISC are extremely important to the whisky industry as the Malt Masters and Master Blenders from Scotland form the panels which choose the winning whiskies, so to recieve so many awards increases the credibility of our company and our whiskies.

Our Malt Master Brian Kinsman was unable to attend so our previous Malt Master David Stewart was on hand to receive the Distillers and International Distillers of the year trophies.

As well as launching a 1961 Glenfiddich in Delhi and a Rich Oak event in Mumbai we focussed on seven 5 star hotels famous for their fine dining, four in Delhi and three in Mumbai.

The concept was to match 12, 15, 18 and 21 year old Glenfiddich with four different dishes at each venue, ( I love my job) so in Delhi that was 16 main courses in one day matched with 16 whiskies, needless to say we could not consume all the food or indeed all the whisky but it was difficult on occasion to leave the food on the plate as it was delicious, my one regret, none of the restaurants were Indian.

From the 16 dishes we chose the serving that best matched each of our Glenfiddich expressions will form a Glenfiddich food pairing menu in Delhi.

We carried out the same exercise in Mumbai and to my relief the first two hotels were very into Indian cuisine and also very competitive and keen to see our reaction to the pairing, the third location was the Taj Palace Hotel which received the very first alcohol licence in India, there we had a mix of both Indian and International food.

Malt Whisky is very smooth, subtle and easy on the palate, we can now add `versatile` as it matched the Indian food extremely well, so here`s the deal, order your Indian takeaway  now and arm yourself with a couple of Glenfiddichs, I`m sure you will enjoy the experience.

Myself and Executive Chef Rajdeep Kapoor at ITC`s Maratha Hotel in Mumbai.

I first met them last week in Limassol, Cyprus and then the following evening in Nicosia I met again with the president of the club, Mr Kyriacou Polycarpous  who presented me with one of their society`s shirts, apparently he felt I more than qualified, hopefully it was for my whisky knowledege.

Pic below of the group in limassol, I have left a few suggestions with the group for his future tastings, I look forward to hearing how they turn out.

The group in Limassol

Our first tasting was in Groningen at the Pintelier, a belgian bar specialising in belgian beers and fine whiskies, all of our Glenfiddich range behind the bar, fantastic.

We decided to concentrate on the Solera 15 year old for our tour as for some time now we have run a series of successful deconstruction tastings looking into how a Single Malt is put together, so we had samples of 15 year old matured in american oak and european oak, a sample of the ex bourbon further matured in new american oak and of course a sample direct from the Solera vat itself, all of the samples were cask strength which didn`t seem to bother any of our guests.

Second day of the tour was split between a small whisky festival in Coevorden and another Solera masterclass in Enschede called the Pijp, the owner is a very enthusiastic supporter of Whisky, the festival at Coevorden was also excellent.

The last day was held in a relatively small town called Oisterwijk, the bar was called Het Gelagh and Toon, the owner, is a very big personality who has designs on expanding his business to include a tasting room specialising on beers and whiskies, a very knowledgable crowd at this one and of course they all enjoyed the Scottish music.

Whisky is alive and kicking in Holland and each bar and event was full of very enthusiastic whisky consumers, for more information on the tour go to Youtube for “Glenfiddich Ambassador Nederland”

Tasting at Het Gelagh Bar in Oisterwijk

We sell approximately 15% of our Glenfiddich Malt to America, their population approx 230 Million, we sell around 9% of our Glenfiddich bottlings into Taiwan which has a population of 24 Million.

8,000 consumers turned up to visit the show over two days which makes it the biggest whisky live ever.

The Taiwanese people have taken Malt Whisky to their hearts and in particular Malt Whisky, I carried out ten different whisky masterclasses over the three days visit, one to the Taiwan Single Malt Whisky Club where they take their whisky very seriously.

On the same visit out to Asia I popped into both Singapore and Hong Kong, both very different markets but both quite solid on Malt Whisky, Singapore has quite a few specialist whisky bars as does Hong Kong.

An evening event at the Taiwan Single Malt Whisky Club.

A visit at one of the best liquor stores in Taipei with Taiwanese whisky lovers.

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.

Much has changed since 1963, when William Grant’s descendants took the brave decision to repackage Glenfiddich and market it around the world – a step recognised as having started the worldwide popularity of single malt Scotch whisky.

Glenfiddich will be hosting  an open forum examining the history of the globalisation of malt Scotch whisky and other world whiskies/whiskeys, and a debate around the future flavours of Scotland’s finest.

While the Scotch whisky industry is governed by strict laws to ensure the integrity of Scotland’s national drink remains intact, many other malt whisky producing nations don’t have the same heritage to protect and so more relaxed legislation allows them innovate further.

As such, the evening’s talks will look at the benefits the single malt Scotch whisky industry enjoys from its protection, the innovations taking place beyond Scotland and debate what we can learn from them for the future development of our own industry. The evening is for whisky novices as well as enthusiasts.

To complement Glenfiddich’s support of the Scottish Diaspora Forum at the Scottish Parliament www.scottishdiasporaforum.org, Glenfiddich is hosting an open forum examining the history of single malt Scotch whisky’s popularity abroad and how new malt whisky producing nations have been inspired by Scotch.

The panel of members will include: Whisky Magazine Japan editor, Dave Broom;  SWA’s Campbell Evans;  Glenfiddich’s Ian Millar and is chaired by Whisky Shop’s Ian Bankier.

The event is to be held at:
The Raeburn Room, Old College
University of Edinburgh
South Bridge
Edinburgh
EH8 9YL

WHEN: Friday 24th July
5.00pm Registration
7.15pm Ends

This is a free evening, although places are limited. Reservations in advance through http://www.glenfiddich.co.uk/news-events/scottish-diaspora-forum/index.html.

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.