#10: Glen Garioch Cask #992 14 year old 1998, 54.6%, $100

Quite fragrant, with a thick, oily texture. Sweet notes (vanilla, sticky toffee), ripe barley, earthy peat, licorice root, and a hint of melon and citrus. Very clean and characterful. A lot of fun to drink. Nicely done! I can’t imagine a 14 year old Glen Garioch tasting any better than this. (A Julio’s Liquor Exclusive) —John Hansell

Advanced Whisky Advocate magazine rating: 90

#9: Breckenridge Bourbon, 43%, $40

WHACK! The spicy smack of the nose sends me to check the mashbill; sure enough, this is 38% rye. The nose fumes with youthful zest: cinnamon, bright mint, sun-warmed green grass. Pour some on the palate for more explosive entertainment; sweet cinnamon red-hots burst, corn pops, and the oak burns on into the rye-high finish. This is one excitable boy of a bourbon, and it’s got me humming along. Impressive.—Lew Bryson

Advanced Whisky Advocate magazine rating: 90

#8: Angel’s Envy Rye, 50%, $70           

The folks at Angel’s Envy once again push the envelope with this 95% rye whiskey finished in Caribbean rum casks. Vibrant, spicy rye notes (cinnamon and mint) are tamed by rich maple syrup, graham cracker crust, nutty toffee, candy floss, subtle tropical fruit, and creamy vanilla. Warm, spicy, rummy finish. This is a mood whiskey—not one I would drink every day—but the flavors marry nicely and the sweetness tames this high-testosterone rye whiskey. Bonus points for uniqueness.—John Hansell

Advanced Whisky Advocate magazine rating: 90

#7: Cutty Sark Prohibition, 50%, $30

The Real McCoy! It’s said that during Prohibition Bill McCoy serviced the better speakeasies with proper Cutty Sark; hence the name. If this is a recreation of what they might have been drinking back then, you can see why they kept fighting over it. This is another bold, earthy, smoky blend with oily, industrial notes. There’s crabapple, smoke, bitter lemon, grapefruit, and even black currant. It would seem blended whisky is where it’s at right now! Great stuff.—Dominic Roskrow

Advanced Whisky Advocate magazine rating: 90

#6: Jura 1977 Vintage, 46%, $900

This vintage expression from Jura has been matured in three first-fill bourbon casks and then finished for one year in a ruby port pipe. Just 498 bottles have been released. Apricots, pineapple, caramel, butterscotch, sultanas, and white chocolate on the nose. The palate is warm and spicy, with subtle pine and citrus fruits, along with coconut and a hint of peat. Long in the finish with more vanilla before dried fruits and oak kick in. The delicate peat remains.—Gavin Smith

Advanced Whisky Advocate magazine rating: 90

#5: Paul John Single Cask Whisky P1-163, 57%, £60

Another hard to get Indian whisky, but further proof that the category isn’t a one-trick pony. This single cask release is the second from the John Distilleries and a significant step upward. An altogether more complex whisky with an earthy prickly peat at one level, and a rich pureed pear heart with orange fruit and berries. The combination is quite gorgeous and with a little water you get whisky’s answer to a summertime flower show. Impressive stuff.—Dominic Roskrow

Advanced Whisky Advocate magazine rating: 91

#4: Kavalan Bourbon Oak, 46%, $100

Surprise, surprise. This is like the school’s best pitcher, who then steps onto the football team and throws for a game-winning touchdown. This is a whole new side to Kavalan. Remember Faith No More doing “Easy”? Having out-sherried and out-bourboned us with kickass rock n roll whisky, Kavalan goes for gentle and croony, with vanilla and honey. The coup de grace? Apple pie and cream morph into licorice and menthol. Exquisite.—Dominic Roskrow

Advanced Whisky Advocate magazine rating: 93

#3: Millstone Rye 100, 50%, €53

From the distillery that received last year’s World Whisky award comes another contender for the title in 2013. This is called 100 because it’s 100 percent rye distilled in pot stills, 100 proof, and 100 months old (a bit over eight years). It’s big, and perfectly balanced between honey and fruit, sparkling distinctive raunchy spice, and a dash of ginger biscuits. This is rye to die for. Superb.—Dominic Roskrow

Advanced Whisky Advocate magazine rating: 93

#2: Amrut Greedy Angels, 50%, $225

A whopping three-quarters of the spirit put in these casks was taken by greedy angels. It has a big waft of crystallized pineapple, tropical fruits, and spiky spice on the nose. On the palate, red licorice, syrupy jellied fruits, some mandarin, cherry lozenge, and tinned strawberries, and the same menthol rancio you’d kill for in a 30 year old scotch. This is Amrut’s oldest-ever whisky; it’s as rare as hen’s teeth…and just 8 years old. Awesome.—Dominic Roskrow

Advanced Whisky Advocate magaine rating: 94

#1: Lot No. 40 2012 Release, 43%, C$40

Distilled from 90% rye grain and 10% rye malt, Lot No. 40 boldly mingles the galvanizing piquancy of distilled rye grain with the soaring floral fragrance of malted rye, and a fruitiness born of age. It begins with hard, dusty, earthy rye, and sour rye bread, followed by a trio of baking spices: cloves, nutmeg, and blistering ginger. A farm-tinged sourness fades into citrus fruit with velvet tannins. (Canada only)—Davin de Kergommeaux

Advanced Whisky Advocate magazine rating: 94

Film has Sundance. Rock music has Glastonbury. Single malt Scotch whisky? Depending on your palate, it has two important festivals of celebration, both held during May. Towards the end of the month, peat-heads and fans of smoke are drawn like the angels to Islay’s warehouses where, under the banner of “Fèis Ile: the Festival of Music and Malt,” each of the island’s eight distilleries (plus Jura) host their own open day, turning the isle into something akin to a whisky theme park for a week.

However, peat is not for everyone and, with Islay being limited in capacity for both transport and accommodation, those whisky advocates whose palates are more focused on heather and honey have a more than suitable alternative: The Spirit of Speyside Festival.

As the global appetite for scotch increases, so the Spirit of Speyside festival has started to grow, offering a wide range of tastings, tours, dinners, walks, shows, quizzes, and other creative events which highlight not just the global popularity of Speyside whiskies, but also their increasingly relaxed, entertaining and inclusive attitude.

Boasting an enormous number of distilleries, Speyside is the beating heart of Scotch whisky production; be it stand alone single malts or those which play the vital role as key components in blends. This makes organizing a festival across so many potential sites, with so many different brands, flavors, and focuses a tricky task, so I headed out to the region to see how it works.

On arrival, one just has to open up the specially produced newspaper for the festival to see a mindboggling double page spread of events. All of which are excellently supported by a comprehensive festival bus service costing just £25 for a ticket, which will last you the duration of the five days and allows unlimited travel between participant distilleries and other key destinations.

The festival’s opening is marked by a gala dinner on the Thursday evening, hosted each year by a different single malt distillery. 2013 saw the baton passed from The Macallan to The Glenlivet, who staged their fantastic feast in a converted warehouse where the 300 guests were treated to speeches, musical entertainment, and a charity auction of rare and collectable bottles from across the region.

From there in, planning becomes simply a matter of choice. From bespoke tours and tastings, such as “The Ultimate Mortlach Experience” which includes a rare bottle from the distillery created only for the festival, at £150, through to “Fill Your Own Octave Cask” at Glenglassaugh, for just £10, there is something for everyone to do.  On the Saturday alone, I counted over 50 available events, some with regular time slots across the day. Price-wise, some of the events are free, but the majority weigh in at under £20 per person.

From the myriad of tastings on offer at the festival, my pick of the bunch (and my word, what a big bunch there is to choose from) was a tasting at Aberlour distillery. Billed as “Casks from the Past,” just four whiskies, with a combined age of over 150 years, were on show.

As it turned out, the first three drams were all extra special Aberlours: the first was a limited edition 12 year old, at 56.8% from a first fill oloroso sherry cask. A real monster, this bottling is sadly only available locally (the first few cases were offered to the residents of Aberlour village, who had to turn up with proof of address to enable them to make the purchase). I say sadly as it was a real winner of a dram. It was followed by two cask samples, drawn for use in the tasting only: one at 26 years of age (60.2% ABV) and one from 1978 (55% ABV). The curveball final dram came courtesy of the closed distillery, Inverleven. Distilled in 1973 and bottled at 48.85% ABV, this Lowland single malt was made using their ‘Ugly Betty’ Lomond still which now sits on the aforementioned Isle of Islay, making The Botanist gin at Bruichladdich distillery.

As the festival rolled on, one of the most pleasing aspects was not just trying a variety of different expressions from across the region, but hearing voices and accents from across the world from all those who had made the effort to attend.

Carrying everything from the 200-only limited edition festival bottling from Glenfiddich, through to the first release under new ownership from Tamdhu distillery, who chose the festival to officially re-open the distillery, the valiant effort from the whisky lovers seemed to throw the gauntlet down to the angels and the 2% per-year share of Speyside Scotch which they take away. I guarantee you, this year’s record number of visitors took home a lot more liquid than that, both in bottles and in their bellies. If you’re planning a trip to Speyside, try and make it during festival time. You won’t be disappointed.

Scotch Whisky Association Chief Executive Gavin Hewitt posed the same question at the Keepers of the Quaich banquet, which I attended while I was in Scotland. His response what that the Golden Age of Whisky is yet to come. He described what we are currently experiencing as a “renaissance.”

Still, some whisky enthusiasts who have been drinking whisky for a long time (like me) believe that the Golden Age is behind us. One blogger in particular (Sku) argues that the golden age was from the late 1990s and lasted about a decade. Follow the link to understand his logic. I, for one, have a tendency to agree with him on most points. Whisky prices were reasonable, quality improved overall from the early 1990s, and rare whiskies were plentiful–and affordable.

However, if you didn’t start drinking–and buying–whisky until the late 1990s, you missed out on an era that was almost as good: the early-to-mid1990s. Many of the now legendary bottlings were from that time, including the Black Bowmores, some amazing Springbanks, and 1973/1974 Longrows, just for starters. Plus, whiskies were ridiculously under-priced. How about $300 for Black Bowmore, $65 for Springbank 21 yr., and Macallan 18 yr. (from the great 1970s vintages) for under $50. Many whiskies from that era are fetching up to ten times as much these days at auction. Good single malts like Dalmore 12 yr. and Aberlour 10 yr. were under $20. Plus, if you knew where to shop, independent bottled whiskies (like Gordon & MacPhail, for example) that were really nice and/or rare, were dirt cheap (albeit often at 40-43% abv and not chll-filtered).

The one main factor is stopping me from saying that the early-to-mid 1990s was also a Golden Age of Whisky: quality control. While it’s true that some amazing whiskies came from that era, I would have to say that the worst whiskies I’ve ever tasted also came from that era. These were whiskies so bad, that I dumped them down the drain. Many were from independent bottlers who should have known better. Many times industry reps told me back then that there are no bad whiskies; some are just better than others. They were wrong.

What about the future? Could there still be a Golden Age of Whisky in front of us? Well, there’s one main factor stopping me from saying yes: price. While I honestly believe that the overall quality of whisky will be better in the future than in any time in the past–and all the new craft distillers around the world will energize the whisky industry the same way craft beer has done for brewing–it’s going to come with a higher price tag.  The days of undervalued, under-appreciated whiskies (and whiskeys) are over.

That’s not to say that all this increased production and expansion won’t lead to another whisky glut (and bust) in the future. The industry is very cyclical. If we do end up with another glut from over-production and over-pricing, it could lead to another Golden Age. My gut feeling, however (and it’s just a gut feeling), is that this isn’t likely. At least not one as severe as the one we experienced 20 years or so ago.

One final point: I don’t want to dissuade new whisky drinkers from buying whisky now. Just because we aren’t in a “Golden Age” doesn’t mean there aren’t wonderful whiskies at a fair value. There are plenty. It’s just that the increased demand in whisky, diminished supply, and the proliferation of NAS (no age statement) whiskies makes it more challenging.

What do you think? When is/was the Golden Age of Whisky? And why?

There are precious few signs that spring has arrived on Skye.  The fabric of the mountainside is a muted patchwork of exhausted greens and intense purples from the quiescent winter grass and last summer’s heather. A severe storm is grinding itself out on the Hebrides, with dense, savage rainclouds enveloping the summits of the Cuillins on the Minginish peninsula. Rain and snowmelt have swollen the many burns and streams which cascade down steep slopes into the lochs; the unpredictable routes of the brilliant white torrents reminiscent of the legs running down your whisky glass. I approach Talisker distillery after a five hour coast-to-coast drive, the car whipped by rain every single minute of the journey. Talisker: give me shelter from the storm.

Talisker welcomed 60,000 visitors last year, the highest footfall of any Diageo-owned distillery in Scotland. This is a growing brand that continues to receive attention with smart updated packaging, premium limited editions, and new no-age-statement line extensions including Talisker Storm and the new Talisker Port Ruighe.  These are soon to be joined by Talisker Dark Storm, a new Travel Retail expression matured in heavily charred casks.

No wonder the parent company has invested seriously in how the distillery in Carbost presents itself to the world. It’s styled by the tagline “Made By The Sea,” and as I enter, they are not kidding around. Carved waves surge out of the floorboards, lapping at information stations that encapsulate materials central to whisky making here: copper for the stills, the wood of the wormtubs, and the curious U-bend in the lyne arms with the skinny re-entrant pipe that loops condensed spirit back down into Talisker’s wash stills. Hand in hand are the rugged elements representing the strong winds driving the waves onto the rocks in Loch Harport, yachting sails, and rigging marking the maritime positioning fitting the distillery’s exposed setting.

The stories are rich from the distillery’s origins in 1830 with Hugh MacAskill who orchestrated the Clearances on Skye, the dependency on old Clyde puffers to bring in raw materials and take away casks to the mainland, and the night of the major stillhouse fire in 1960. The new ground floor reception area is a triumph of contemporary design and a breath of fresh (salty) air compared with the former upstairs lounge area where expectant visitors used to sip a dram in the past, while tour numbers grew to a critical mass. The new space has come at the expense of part of the sea-facing Duty Free Warehouse #4, but the tour still offers a view into this working warehouse where the oldest casks on site are maturing (currently two casks filled in 1979).

Talisker offer a basic tour at £7 (around $10-11) and an in-depth tasting tour for £25 ($38) that takes around two hours and includes a tasting of five different expressions plus an opportunity to try Talisker new make. This year, they are introducing something new with a ‘tasting without a tour’ session for repeat visitors and whisky enthusiasts who have seen it all before and just want to get their nose into the new products. The new tasting room has a colorful border of jumbled texts and fonts like a wood type block, each singing out a distinctive flavor descriptor; honeycombs, smoky bacon, wooden fish boxes….

This room will host the tasting tours and visiting media representatives like today, when a party of French journalists are attending a press launch for Talisker Port Ruighe. The space where the tours conclude is my favorite part of the redesign; a versatile room that can be partitioned by a blue swing panel covered in slogans of the key messages. The areas are bounded by vertical wooden planks, each laser cut with the names and flavors of a different expression of Talisker single malt whisky.

It’s the clever little touches that impress, such as the mirrors beside the narrow dunnage warehouse windows to increase the natural light and the sail ropes that hoist the vertical planks upwards like storm covers hiding cannon muzzles on a man-of-war. When the visitor season hits full swing later this summer, the tour guides will be conducting 30-35 tours per day with tour groups coming into this area for tastings every 15 minutes.

I’ve been visiting Skye since I was a boy and it still takes me a second to remember to use the Skye bridge and not pull off the road at Kyle of Lochalsh down to wait for the roll-on-roll-off ferry to make the short crossing to Kyleakin. Despite today’s cataclysmic downpour, I can reassure you that the Isle of Skye looks glorious in the summertime if you are planning a trip. The impressive new million pound facilities at Talisker Distillery will handsomely reward your efforts for making the journey. This display will leave you with a deeper understanding of the necessary characteristics embodied in the spirit of the Islanders: resilient, inventive, humorous, tough, self-sufficient, waterproof, patient, lucky.

Photographs by Jonny McCormick

I was invited to join a press trip to Highland Park distillery recently. I accepted, and added on two days of my own to visit other distilleries in the Highlands. The trip was last week, and after a pleasant Sunday afternoon in the cask ale bars of Edinburgh, we flew up to Kirkwall on Orkney on a brisk Monday morning, dropped our bags at the Lynnfield Hotel, and went to the distillery. We stood in the courtyard, smelling the peat burning in the maltings, looking at tubs filled with tiny daffodils, and feeling the sleet fall lightly on our heads and shoulders. That’s Orkney for you.

Highland Park does floor malting of about 20% of its malt, and smokes it all with Orkney peat to between 35 and 50 ppm of phenols. The local peat is unique, and densely layered with heather. We went out to the peat cuttings the following day, and could see heather roots right down to the 5,000 year level. The other 80% of the malt is unpeated and is bought in. The 80/20 blend is the same in all mashing, and yields the familiarly gentle peat character of Highland Park, with a phenol level of about 2 ppm in the spirit.

Highland Park’s whisky is all aged in oloroso sherry-seasoned casks; some made from American oak, some from Spanish oak (about 50/50), but all sherry (which made for an amusing “Ah HA!” moment when we spotted a small number of port pipes; they were experimental, and may never make it to a bottling). They vary the ratios of American/ Spanish and first-fill/refill to get different character for the different bottlings. The 30 Year Old, for instance, has no first-fill casks; the 25 Year Old is 50% first-fill casks.

It was broadly hinted to us that the Edrington Group would like to reserve as much Highland Park as possible for single malt bottling (they’ve already cut back on the amount of barrels being released to independent bottlers). With the same kind of demand driving things at The Macallan, you wonder what the future is for Famous Grouse and Cutty Sark.

After a fascinating second day getting the Orkney experience—standing stones, cliffs, more sleet, a Neolithic chamber tomb, the peat bogs, Scapa Flow, and fish and chips in a harborside pub—we left Kirkwall Wednesday morning, and I rented a car to drive to Speyside. My first stop was The Macallan, where my guide, Ian Duncan, told me that they’re now running 24/7 every day of the year, except for three weeks of maintenance in July. Yes, every day of the year, even Christmas and New Year’s, which is how they’re putting out 9.2 million liters a year (even given their “curiously small stills”).

The visitor center has an excellent display on wood, which shows the structure of oak, explaining how oak is watertight, but also, very slowly, breathes. The oak they’re largely looking at, of course, is Spanish and American oak used in sherry casks, which now cost The Macallan about £650 each, compared to £500 only two years ago. Do yourself a favor: drink more sherry!

Unfortunately, since I was traveling solo, I wasn’t able to taste anything, so I pushed on to The Glenlivet, where I was met by international brand ambassador Ian Logan. It was a bit late in the afternoon, so we had the place largely to ourselves, and we paused for a moment in the new distillation hall, a soaring place with a grand view across the valley. The stills are oil-fired, but natural gas is coming: I’d been held up by the construction along the way. The new stills are in addition to the old ones and give the distillery a capacity of 10.5 million liters a year, trying to keep up with a booming demand that had increased sales of Glenlivet from 2,500 cases a year in the 1970s to 250,000 cases in 2001, and an amazing 825,000 cases in 2012.

I asked Ian about the still geometry; why are the stills at Glenlivet shaped the way they are? He called over brewer Richard Clark, who cocked his head and said, “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it. But really, that’s what it is. Whatever the reason they were built the way they were, keep doing it the same way, because that’s how your spirit is.”

That led us into a discussion of quality vs. consistency. The distillation here is highly consistent because of automation. That’s not necessarily higher quality every time, Ian noted, but it makes for a regularly higher level overall, and it’s always the same. Automation may make a smaller workforce possible—there are ten people making the whisky here—but it’s still the people who make the whisky, he said.

Then we had a chat about limits. The last downturn in the industry was in the 1980s, Ian said, but Chivas kept making whisky, and Glenlivet is set for older whiskies because of that. “It will turn down again,” he said. “It always does. Everything does. Everything is cyclical.” There are other limits on growth; everyone I talked to on this trip had water on their mind, a limiting factor even here in rainy Scotland as production expands in response to demand.

I drove on up past Inverness, and spent the night at The Anderson in Fortrose, owned by an old acquaintance from Philly, Jim Anderson (and he has a great whisky bar). It was a short drive to Tain the next morning, where Annette MacKenzie took me around a quiet Glenmorangie that was slowly coming back to life after annual maintenance. They did a total refurbishment three years ago, and are looking at 6 million liters production this year.

It was quiet at the distillery, but things were stirring. Malt was being delivered, and steam was slowly being turned back on. “Good to hear the noise!” Annette called to the stillman. Then she told me that because the sounds of the steam and the bubbles and the gushes of the stillhouse are so important, and the stillman leans to listen to every little nuance, “You can’t sneak up on a stillman.”

I drove back southeast, backtracking to The Dalmore, where Shauna Jennens took me around. We saw the two sets of stills—the “little rascals” and the “big bastards”—with the odd flat tops of the wash stills and the unique cooling water jackets of the spirit stills.

“It’s an unbalanced distilling system,” explained stillman Mark Hallas. “The spirit’s different coming off the different stills, but over 24 hours it balances. It’s all manually controlled, they call it ‘dynamic distillation.’” He grinned. “Automate it all you want, the most important part is the meat in the machine.” He grinned again, and tapped the side of his head.

The meat in the machine at Dalmore that everyone knows best is Richard Paterson’s nose, of course, and though he wasn’t there that morning, his presence was palpable: in videos, in pictures, and in the complicated blending that’s done with six different casks and finishes for the single malts. Even a simple nose like mine noticed that the smell in these dunnage warehouses, right beside the Cromarty Firth, is unique: malt, wood, stemmy grape, and salt.

And here I did finally give in and have a small drink of Matusalem oloroso sherry; “good stuff,” as Shauna pronounced it, and it was rich, fruity, and delicious. We followed it with a bare quarter-ounce of King Alexander III, and the relation was clear. It was a very good moment, looking out the window, across the sun-beaten firth, ready to push on.

Push on I did, with one more stop before heading back to the Edinburgh airport to fly home. I drove east to Elgin, and then up the Spey to Rothes, where I met Fiona Toovey for a tour of Forsyths, the still manufacturers. Once kitted out with reflective vest and steel-toed shoes, we walked the yard, full of coppersmiths banging away with hammers of differing sizes, saw the large pits for the mechanical hammers, and the shop where Forsyths rides out the cyclical whisky industry with work on specialized steel welding and shaping for the gas and oil drilling industry.

They were gearing up for the summer maintenance period here as well. A warehouse was filling with new and refurbished stills and condensers, and a small army of fitters would swarm on them to get them into quiet distilleries during the short summer break. Things are good at Forsyths, and only getting better as more major distillery expansions are announced.

That was the end of my trip, but for the intensely scenic drive down to Edinburgh (and a quick stop to take a few pictures at Tullibardine for my sister). The Scotch whisky industry is successful and expanding, and looking challenges straight in the eye. Where will the water come from to make the whisky? Where will the wood come from for sherry aging? Where will the money come from to build more warehouses than current sales need (but future sales depend on)? Time will tell. For now, all is well in the glens and on the islands.

Tamdhu. It’s not a name that comes easily to mind, or trips off the lips of even a hard-core malt enthusiast. Which is a shame because this classic Speyside distillery, located close to the River Spey, near-neighbor to Knockando (and, not so very far away, Cardhu and The Macallan), probably deserves to be better known. But its luck is changing.

We haven’t heard very much about it in recent years, apart from the bad news of its closure.  That’s because this Speyside malt was, for the most part, operated by its previous owners Highland Distillers to provide fillings for their blends and to exchange in the market for other whisky they needed. Then they decided that their priorities had changed and decided to mothball it.

That was in April 2010.  To my knowledge, several potential buyers expressed an interest in taking it on.  But, one by one, they dropped out: the distillery was too large for one group to operate cost-effectively and the old dark grains plant represented a problem; another would-be buyer got close to the finishing line but couldn’t quite raise the finance.

Then, to some raised eyebrows, it was smoothly acquired in June 2011 by Ian Macleod Distillers, an independent, family-owned firm of distillers, blenders, and bottlers until then best-known for reviving the Glengoyne distillery and for their Isle of Skye blend.  Macleod had, of course, previously purchased Glengoyne from Highland Distillers, so perhaps the purchase wasn’t quite as surprising as it seemed at the time.

However, successful though they had been with Glengoyne, Tamdhu represented quite a step up in scale. Glengoyne makes around 1 million liters of spirit annually; a fully-operational Tamdhu can produce around 4 times that, making it a very different challenge. What is more, the brand had less previous exposure than Glengoyne, giving them less of a foundation to build on.

But Macleod’s blended business is in good shape and, with pressure all round on stocks, it made commercial sense for them to secure a second source of supply to ensure their continued independence.  In January 2012, Tamdhu was quietly brushed up; eight full-time employees taken on and the distillery made ready to go back into production. The plant has been quietly gathering speed since then.  But there was a lot to do: 14,500 maturing casks to evaluate; new packaging to design; distributors to appoint and brief and a relaunch to plan.

That will finally get underway at the forthcoming Speyside Whisky Festival when Tamdhu will open its doors (for one day only; there is no visitor center yet, though given Glengoyne’s success in that field it can only be a matter of time).  That’s on Saturday, May 4 (noon to 4 p.m.), when a Victorian-themed “Whisky Fete” will take visitors through the history from 1897 to the present day.

So what will you see and do? For the technically minded, Tamdhu has a twelve-ton semi-lauter mash tun, nine Oregon pine washbacks, three pairs of stills, and those 14,500 casks maturing in five warehouses. The tours will be led by the distillery workers themselves (no work experience students here) and, best of all, visitors will be given a rare opportunity to experience one-off tastings of some single casks, handpicked for the occasion.

There is, of course, a special Limited Edition whisky of which only 1,000 bottles will be released worldwide (price TBD).  Festival visitors will be the first to taste and have the chance to buy.

With continued growth and increased numbers of international visitors, the Speyside Festival event will certainly sell out.  But, if you’re not lucky enough to snag a ticket, don’t despair; Tamdhu will shortly be available in world markets, giving malt enthusiasts a long-lost chance to add this grand old lady of Speyside to their drinks cabinet.

Once Ian Macleod Distillers get this project behind them, we can only look forward to the next distillery they decide to bring back to life…

One person (from the U.S.) on Twitter asked me if there was an age statement on the bottle, which there isn’t. I’m just told that it is “extra-aged.” Then, another person on Twitter (not from the U.S.) tweeted: “Is it just me, or are Americans stuck on age-stated whiskies? Why do most American tweeters I follow seem to be so focused on age statements?”

Well, I don’t know if Americans are more (or less) focused on age statements than the rest of the world, to be honest. I never really thought about it. But what I did start thinking about is the importance of them. Especially now.

In a perfect world, all the whisky companies would make the perfect whisky, regardless of age, and it would always stay perfect. Age statements wouldn’t matter at all, and there would be no reason for wasting our time with them. In fact, they would be a hindrance because, in theory, the perfect whisky could include some young whiskies in the mix.

But it’s not a perfect world, is it? And age statements on whiskies are dropping like flies. Wild Turkey, Macallan, Johnnie Walker, Dalmore, etc.: it seems like everybody is jumping on the NAS (no age statement) bandwagon, choosing to give the whisky some sort of cute or clever name instead.

Why would a whisky company go NAS? That’s an easy one. It doesn’t just give them more freedom and flexibility to deal with gaps in production (can anyone say “Bruichladdich?”). It also allows them to make use of some very young whisky that’s still hasn’t reached puberty yet.

This is very important. Demand has outstripped supply, so every distiller and his brother has cranked up production, and they will be chomping at the bit to get the whisky on the market, meet demand, and bring in a healthy revenue stream. Do we expect a Scotch or Irish whiskey company to put a four-eight  year old whisky on the market and give it an age statement as such? Absolutely not. But you can be sure that they will be happy to blend the younger stuff in with the older stuff and go NAS.

This has been going on for some time now, and it will only continue to become more prevalent. The whisky companies aren’t stupid. They are forward-thinking. They aren’t going to wait until they have new legal whisky coming on the market. They are planning ahead, going NAS now in preparation.

Again, in a perfect world, none of this would matter. They would just continue making the perfect whisky. We would be happy to pay for it, and the world would be such a happy place. But for some companies–and their bean counters–the temptation to “not wait for the perfect whisky” might be just too great, and you–as the consumer–need to be aware of this going forward.

Another thing you need to watch out for is what I will call “NAS age drift.” When a producer first goes NAS with a brand, it might taste just fine. But, after time, as their ratio of old to young whisky nosedives, they might be just too tempted to “tweak” the formula, slowly and gradually so most of you won’t notice, getting more of the younger whisky into the mix.

Yes, this happens more than you think. I once had a blender, when the company the person works for came out with their first NAS release, tell me “be sure to get a bottle of the first batch because I don’t have enough stocks in my warehouse to maintain the age and quality level of the brand going forward.”

So, do age statements matter? Sadly, in a realistic world, I think they do. On the young end of the age spectrum, anyway. An age statement doesn’t guarantee quality, but it can make me feel confident that I’m not getting ripped off paying too much for a bottle of whisky with a lot of young whisky in it.

• Diageo has today announced Teaninich near Alness in the Highlands as the location for its plans to build a new malt whisky distillery. It will have the capacity to produce around 13 million litres of spirit per annum (mla) from 16 copper stills.
• The company also announced a major new phase of expansion to its Scotch whisky production in the Speyside area.  This includes an investment of  £12 million to expand the existing Teaninich distillery to almost double its capacity.
• The single malt whisky produced at the new distillery and at the expanded Teaninich distillery will be used in a range of Diageo’s world-leading blended Scotch whisky brands.
• Diageo also announced plans to invest around £30 million in new production facilities in Speyside, including a project to substantially increase the capacity of the Mortlach distillery at Dufftown. This will involve the building of a new stillhouse, which will replicate the unusual partial-triple distillation process which makes Mortlach unique.
• Full details at: http://wp.me/p1etfV-6Y
• All of this activity is a key milestone of the £1bn($1.5bn) five-year investment plan which was launched last year.

The whisky boom continues.

Canadian whisky makers have a reputation, not entirely undeserved, for keeping their best whiskies at home. Heads up, America! Pike Creek, one of Canada’s finest new whiskies, is about to hit the shelves of liquor stores in ten states.

This is a good time for makers of premium small-batch whiskies such as Pike Creek. Sales are growing rapidly, and ultra-premium Canadian whisky experienced an 18% growth in sales last year. The Pike Creek team and their Canadian whisky making colleagues feel the time is now right for Pike Creek to enter the U.S. market. Or perhaps more accurately: re-enter. Pike Creek is a reprise of an earlier version released in the late 1990s, but which drowned in a wake of seemingly disinterested management by Allied Domecq.

Initially, the reprised Pike Creek was intended as a Canada-only product. That plan was quickly revisited after a very successful pre-Christmas Canadian launch. The arrival of Ross Hendry, formerly of The Glenrothes, as the new director of international sales at Corby Distillers (makers of Pike Creek) also played a role.

“When I came to Corby it surprised me,” Hendry told me recently. “They took Canadian self-deprecation to a new level; even more surprising when you consider the quality of the juice. I’m pretty excited about taking Pike Creek into the U.S.”

Success has its challenges, though, especially when it takes a decade to make a ten year old whisky. If sales take off in the U.S., as expected, Pernod Ricard (owners of Corby) is projecting shortages a couple of years down the road. With a long-term commitment to the U.S. market, they made a strategic choice from the start. The U.S. version of the whisky has been tweaked. Pike Creek remains a 10 year old in Canada while the export version will be mostly 7 and 8 year old whisky and will not carry an age statement.

“It’s not a cost of goods issue,” Hendry assures me. “We’re just making sure we have enough liquid to supply the market.” Overall, the flavors are close enough to say it’s the same whisky. The 10 year old starts out bigger, but its new American cousin quickly catches up with a longer and more interesting finish.

A neck tag tells U.S. consumers that Pike Creek is “Crafted by the Elements,” referring to the unheated warehouses where the whisky matures. Temperatures plunge in the frigid Canadian winters and then soar in summer’s heat. Windsor, where the whisky matures, has the greatest annual temperature variation of any whisky region in the world.

Since Canada’s weather varies enough from year to year, no-one should be surprised if minor differences are noted among various batches of Pike Creek whisky, at home or abroad. The export-only Pike Creek will be a barometer of these year-to-year differences.

As the port wood finish suggests, this whisky begins with clear elements of sweet, ripe red fruit, laced with gingery hot pepper. Hints of menthol with a slight herbal edge slide into silky oak tannins. It’s a voluptuous whisky that ends with cleansing citrus pith. Beginning this month, whisky lovers in the U.S. will be able to taste Pike Creek Canadian whisky without crossing the border.

Some of the whiskies are being produced and bottled just for this event–you won’t see or taste them anywhere else. They’re still “work in progress” and are identified as TBD (to be determined). We are very excited about the program and the whiskies. Hopefully you can join us. I’ll provide additional updates as we get closer to the event.

WhiskyFest New York 2013 Seminar Topics

Wanted: Dead or Alive

A tasting of rare whiskies: two from demolished distilleries and two from active distilleries. Industry experts will be on-hand to describe these whiskies and what makes them so special

Moderator: Jonny McCormick

• Glenury Royal 23 yr. old, bottled in 1997. A rare bottling of single malt scotch from a distillery that last produced in 1983.
• Stitzel-Weller bourbon (TBD). This legendary bourbon distillery closed in the early 1990s. We will taste something rare from the Diageo stocks that remain.
• Kininvie (TBD). Relatively new distillery owned by William Grant and on the site of Glenfiddich and Balvenie, but rarely ever bottled and never imported to the U.S.
• Sazerac 18 yr. old Rye. This is the first-ever release of this now legendary rye whiskey, Distilled in 1981 and  bottled in 2000.

Whisky Legend #1: Jimmy Russell

We spend time with Wild Turkey Master Distiller Jimmy Russell, talk about life and whiskey, and taste a very special Wild Turkey whiskey selected by Jimmy.

Moderator: Lew Bryson

12 in all the World

The world’s best whiskymakers each produce just twelve bottles of a whiskey exclusively for WhiskyFest, never to be tasted anywhere else. Ever. (Whisky specifics TBD.)

Moderator: Dave Broom

• Ardbeg
• Balvenie
• Highland Park
• Aberlour

Whisky Legend #2: Jim McEwan

We spend time with Bruichladdich Whiskymaker Jim McEwan, talk about life and whisky, and taste a very special Bruichladdich selected by Jim just for this occassion.

Moderator: Dave Broom

Scotch & Chocolate

Whiskymakers collaborate with chocolatiers, each pairing a whisky with a specific chocolate. Both the whiskymakers and chocolatiers will be on the panel to discuss their parings. (Details on the whiskies and chocolates TBD.)

Moderator: Gavin Smith

• Compass Box (Featuring John Glaser of Compass Box)
• Glenmorangie (Featuring Dr. Bill Lumsden of Glenmorangie)
• Dalmore (Featuring Richard Paterson of Whyte & Mackay)

Talisker lunch

We taste a special selection of four different Talisker whiskies.

Moderator: Dave Broom

Whisky Legend #3: Parker Beam

We spend time with Heaven Hill Master Distiller Parker Beam, talk about life, whiskey, and his recent diagnosis of ALS, and taste a very special whiskey selected by Parker.

Moderators: Lew Bryson & John Hansell

Where Whisky is Heading

Taste the hottest, cutting edge whiskies along with the master distillers and blenders who are making them.

Moderator: Dominic Roskrow

• The evolution of US Artisan distilling: Anchor Hotalings
• Bourbon Innovation: Something new and special from Buffalo Trace (TBD)
• Japanese whisky boom: Something new to the U.S. from Japan’s Nikka whisky company.
• The trend towards blended malts. Featuring Blue Hanger, Whisky Advocate Blend of the Year

The Best!

Taste several of the Whisky Advocate award winning whiskies, along with Whisky Advocate’s esteemed whisky writers who chose them.

Moderator: John Hansell

• Glenmorangie Pride 1981 Vintage (>$3,000/bottle!): Gavin Smith
• Four Roses 2012 Limited Edition Small Batch: John Hansell
• Auchentoshan 1979 Vintage: Gavin Smith
• Balvenie Tun 1401: Dave Broom
• Lot No. 40: Davin de Kergommeaux
• Yellow Spot: Dominic Roskrow
• Corsair Triple Smoke: Lew Bryson

(Please note: whiskies subject to change)

We’ve seen a raft of what I’m going to call ‘flavored whiskies’ in the past year. From Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey to Jim Beam’s Red Stag, a couple of Seagram’s Seven Crown products to Crown Royal Maple Finish to—crossing the Atlantic—Bushmills Honey, this category seems to have come out of nowhere. But consumers are lapping it up.

As Dr Nicholas Morgan’s Diageo’s Head of Whisky Outreach told me, it’s worked. Crown Royal Maple Finish has been “astonishingly successful” he says. So why has no-one done something of the kind with Scotch Whisky?

Well, in part, they have. We’ve seen Orangerie from Compass Box (described as a “whisky infusion”) and Sheep Dip’s rather more challenging Amoroso Oloroso. But, speaking plainly, they appeal only to a few hard-core enthusiasts and whisky geeks. How could it be otherwise: their volumes will always be tiny and their prices high.

But when a major brand such as Dewar’s comes along with something we should sit up and pay attention. Except that, strangely in my view, the launch last week of Dewar’s Highlander Honey was greeted (on Twitter at least) by a wave of indifference among whisky bloggers and commentators.

They’re missing something if you ask me. But before I explain what that is, what is Dewar’s Highlander Honey? It’s described as “Dewar’s Scotch Whisky infused with Scottish Heather Honey filtered through Oak Cask Wood”* and to make sure I don’t fall foul of the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) I want to clarify that legally it’s NOT Scotch whisky.

In Europe, Dewar’s Highlander Honey is a “spirit drink” and in the U.S. there is a category of product called “flavored whiskey,” and there are fairly strict labeling rules about how such products must be labeled so that it is clear that they are flavored. For example, it is required that “the name of the predominant flavor shall appear as part of the designation,” i.e., it can’t just be called “whiskey.”

But, in the words of the old saying, “if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.” If you were to glance at a bottle of Highlander Honey alongside regular Dewar’s White Label you could easily be confused: same bottle, same typeface, same Royal Warrant, and same two-part label.

Dewar’s themselves are clear. “When you look at what’s happening in Bourbon and the overall flavor trends in the U.S., we figured it was time to create an offering that is still truly scotch, but gives those who play with flavor trends an option to play within scotch,” said Arvind Krishnan, vice president, brand managing director for Dewar’s.

To avoid any confusion their PR statement is unambiguous in describing the product as an infusion of “hand-selected Scottish honey into the original DEWAR’S WHITE LABEL® blend.”

So are we all clear? This is definitely NOT Scotch whisky! Yet it’s already raising hackles with the SWA, who have stated, “We do have concerns that the labeling and promotion of Dewar’s Highlander Honey could distinguish the product more clearly from Scotch whisky.”

No doubt that will all be sorted out in due course. So why do I think this is significant? Quite simply, because call it “spirit drink,” “flavored whiskey,” or whatever you will, this is the first time in any major market that a significant brand of any scale has taken Scotch whisky, added a non-traditional ingredient, and marketed it in a way that makes it abundantly clear what’s in the bottle. While respecting the regulations, naturally.

Now it seems to me that this opens a door that hitherto has been kept firmly jammed shut. If Dewar’s Highlander Honey is a success, the commercial pressure on other brands to enter this market will be enormous. For now, major players have avoided this route; how long they will continue to exercise such restraint remains to be seen.

For purists this may be sacrilege. For others it may be an exciting innovation that opens Scotch whisky to new drinkers. Just where would YOU stand on a flavored whiskey based on your favorite Scotch?

 *Before you ask, I have no idea how you filter any liquid through wood. I am planning to ask Dewar’s master blender Stephanie MacLeod exactly that very soon!

In the new book Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey: An American Heritage (University of Kentucky Press), author and bourbon historian Mike Veach shreds industry legends and offers new evidence on bourbon’s origins.

Veach discredits the stories of Evan Williams and Elijah Craig for being Kentucky’s first distiller and inventing bourbon respectively. This is nothing new. Henry Crowgey’s book Kentucky Bourbon: The Early Years of Whiskeymaking (University of Kentucky Press, 1971) made these points. But, Veach offers the first evidence that two French brothers are the most likely candidates for inventing bourbon around 1807.

Because French brandy makers are considered the first to age spirits in wood, Veach argues Louis and John Tarascon, originally from the Cognac region, most likely established aging whiskey in barrels. The Tarascon brothers shipped barrels from Shippingport, Kentucky to New Orleans.

But, Veach admits historians will likely never know who truly invented the product we enjoy today. If Vegas were to set odds on who’d find bourbon’s true origins, however, Veach would be an easy front-runner.

As an archivist at the Filson Historical Society, which stores 1.8 million historical documents including original Lewis & Clark papers, Veach sorts through handwritten letters, diaries, and papers from early America. Researchers from all over the world visit the Filson Historical Society for publishing scholarly works. Whiskey is a mere fraction of the society’s archives, but the bourbon historian is always on the lookout for something whiskey-related.

In the pile of parchment inked in early American cursive penmanship, Veach found a July 15, 1826, letter from a Lexington, Ky., grocer to distiller John Corlis. The grocer told Corlis the burnt-inside barrels made better whiskey, giving the first known reference to charred barrels for Kentucky whiskey.

Veach’s book is filled with many great factual whiskey nuggets like the Corlis barrel, making Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey a must read for bourbon lovers. The book peruses untold histories, such as the New York tasting of “Old Bourbon vs. Old Rye” in which 21 year old Old Crow defeated a Pennsylvania rye of similar age. There’s also the infamous Whisky Ring scandal of 1875 and the questionable 1980s Blanton’s blind tastings that raised eyebrows at Maker’s Mark.

Veach’s easy-to-read style combines a scholarly approach with a narrative voice, using facts to move along the history without bogging down the pages with footnotes.

The author is quick to give credit where credit due, too, praising the efforts of Elmer T. Lee, Chris Morris, and Bill Samuels for keeping bourbon interesting and marketable. He also mentions the explosion of whisky media in the 1990s, giving credit to John Hansell’s Malt Advocate (now this publication), Whisky Advocate contributor Chuck Cowdery’s 1992 PBS documentary “Made and Bottled in Kentucky,” and several bourbon-related books.

This book will become a scholarly reference, and I can only hope future whiskey writers use Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey as a factual guide when covering bourbon.

To keep you entertained in the interim, I’d like to draw your attention to a great blog post by Whisky Advocate contributor Chuck Cowdery. Good bourbon isn’t expensive, nor is it hard to find. I agree with every one of his recommendations. Have a look.

Nicely done, Chuck. It’s a valuable resource for anyone looking for a nice, versatile bourbon at a fair price.

The Perthshire distillery of Tullibardine has announced a total relaunch of its single malt range, with a major makeover of both presentation and liquid, adopting the tagline: ‘A drop of pure Highland gold.’ The new lineup is due in the States by May.

According to Tulibardine’s international sales manager James Robertson, “I felt that we needed to change some time ago, as our packaging lacked focus and was behind the times, to be honest. Also when asked, no one at Tullibardine could explain what Tullibardine meant to them. I had an idea, but this was different to other viewpoints.”

Tullibardine distillery, in the village of Blackford, was established in 1949, on the site of a former brewery where King James IV of Scotland reputedly paused to buy beer on the way to his coronation at Scone, near Perth in 1488.

James Robertson says that, “We looked at the various key elements of what Tullibardine was and brought these all together, hence the ‘drop of pure Highland gold,’ emphasis on the 1488 date and the King, getting out the message that Tullibardine is a vibrant, elegant whisky that people wanted to feel part of.”

Having been restored to life late in 2003 by a consortium of businessmen after a decade of silence, Tullibardine distillery was sold to the third-generation family-owned French wines and spirits company Maison Michel Picard, based in Chassagne Montrachet, Burgundy, during 2011.

As part of the Picard portfolio, there is no longer the same imperative to sell spirit to third parties in order to generate cashflow as was previously the case, allowing for greater stability and an emphasis on a smaller and more focused range of premium single malt bottlings.

Until the relaunch, the principal Tullibardine bottlings were Tullibardine Aged Oak, with no age statement, and a 1993 vintage, along with a number of cask finishes. James Robertson notes that, “The previous bottles that were available were good, but there seemed to be little continuity, consumers could not identify with the brand, and the vintage dates confused them as they never did the math to work out how old the whiskies actually were.”

Aged Oak has now been replaced by Sovereign as the entry level expression, and Robertson explains that, “Aged Oak was a good whisky with a name that did not have any real meaning, whereas we feel that Sovereign has a more powerful image and one with a meaning.”

The previous vintage variants have been replaced by 20 and 25 year old bottlings, and Robertson explains that “The finishes have been brought under control, so that we have three core finishes: 225 Sauternes, finished in casks from Chateau Suduiraut, 228 Burgundy, with casks from Chateau de Chassagne Montrachet, and 500 Sherry, using mainly PX [pedro ximenez sherry]casks. The numbers relate to the size in liters of the casks that the whisky has been matured in for the final twelve months.”

Inevitably, such a refocusing of image and brand positioning comes at a cost to the consumer. Robertson confirms that, saying, “In the past, we were guilty of selling our whiskies well below the market rate and so with the rebranding we are now able to place the new 20 year old and 25 year olds at a price level that fits their age. I feel that these six new whiskies at last provide Tullibardine with a core range that has an identity and something that the consumer can feel part of, whether they are new or old Tullibardine followers.”

I met Truman Cox, A. Smith Bowman’s recently installed master distiller, at WhiskyFest New York in October. He was there to debut his luscious, ex-Bowman bourbon/Virginia port barrel-finished Abraham Bowman single barrel. In this particular situation the term “single barrel” meant the distillery created just one barrel for the inaugural run.

When I found out that I’d be in Fredericksburg in February, I shot him an email. He responded immediately and with enthusiasm. “I would be honored to be able to show you around my distillery on Friday. I have you on my calendar and looking forward to your visit.”

You may already have guessed how this turns out. Truman passed away unexpectedly less than a week before my arrival, and I was saddened that his time had come so soon. I was honored to attend his funeral along with Lew Bryson…on the very same day I was to have spent with Truman at the distillery.

Because of the circumstances, I had just about given up on the idea of a tour, but the staff at Bowman graciously offered to take me through the next day. The distillery is housed in a single building of what was once a mammoth complex dedicated to making cellophane. You enter through the “gift shop,” a huge space with merchandise and a tasting area, but otherwise virtually empty, providing future expansion space.

Distilling here might best be described as minimalist. There is no mashing, which eliminates a big part of the overall process. There are plans to add mashing capability and additional distilling capacity to make this a stand-alone operation. At present, twice-distilled spirit from Buffalo Trace is trucked in, to be redistilled in an absolutely fantastic piece of equipment that finally makes it triple distilled Virginia bourbon.

“Mary” (named for the mother of the namesake Bowman brothers) is a huge 1,700 gallon copper pot still that would not seem out of place being run by the Wizard of Oz. She was built by Vendome for Bowman and installed in 1991. Standing over 20 feet tall, Mary is adorned with a reflux ball at her apex, crowned by a triple coil of copper leading into a vertical output pipe that pitches over to drop straight down to the condenser.

The filled barrels are palletized and all occupy a single floor. The entire inventory is housed in one modest building, a stock of just 5,400 barrels! Bowman may be the only long-standing distillery in the U.S. with an output smaller than that of some of their craft brethren.

Recently, some 1970s–era Fairfax County bourbon distilled at Bowman’s former location in northern Virginia was discovered and found its way to Truman. He took notes as he tasted the whiskey that had been distilled by one of his predecessors. “Back in the day Fairfax County Whiskey was good but regional; it didn’t get picked up nationwide. Why? Maybe it didn’t meet the flavors that people wanted then. I am interested in recreating the original formula from Sunset Hills as a future possible project, but I don’t think we can recreate the flavor perfectly. There are just too many variables that can’t be exactly duplicated.”

After sipping the current John J. Bowman, I think Truman might have been closer to replicating old-style bourbon than he gave himself credit for. To me, this whiskey is one of the very few currently available that tastes like it was made in a bygone era. The distillate comes from Buffalo Trace, where they make excellent whiskeys, but none quite like this. Virginia aging versus Kentucky? Sorry, identical latitude. Maybe there’s just something about Mary. Her size and setup encourage a high degree of reflux. Triple distilling further lightens the spirit and eliminates much of the tails.

My tour guide, Bill Jones, was a recent hire of Truman’s, and he still spoke of him in the present tense. We saw some of the experiments Truman had been working on, including French and Hungarian oak barrels. The empty Bowman barrels Truman had chosen to be used for the next port-finished release were banded together on a pallet, ready for him to deliver to the winery to begin their transformation.

Truman Cox is, and will remain, entwined with the success of this distillery for the rest of its history. His impact over his short tenure is palpable, and his selfless, can-do attitude is evident in every corner, in each word spoken here.  Mary will continue to produce distinctive bourbon, and every successive master distiller that fires her up, adjusts her valves, and makes the cuts will be guided, to some extent, by the man whose innovative spirit and integrity finally put this distillery on the map.

Thank you, Truman. The man upstairs must have needed a damn good distiller. He will not be disappointed.

Thanks also to the entire staff at A. Smith Bowman and Buffalo Trace for their hospitality and kindness during this difficult time.