Discover Whisky

In the course of research for my new Scottish Books website I came across a forthcoming book that’s likely to be of interest to many readers of this blog and particularly the Islay drinkers.

Whisky Dream is the story of the resurrection and development of Bruichladdich distillery and the impending revival of the long-closed Port Charlotte. It relates the efforts of Mark Reynier and his team of partners who made it all work, including Jim McEwan formerly of Bowmore, and their myriad adventures on the way, including the initial approaches to the multinational corporation who owned the distillery, the financial negotiations to raise the necessary capital, various unusual encounters along the way, the first new production runs of the distillery, and the battle to re-establish the brand in a competitive world marketplace.

There is a Youtube hosted video related to the book which can be seen on both the Whisky Dream book detail page on Books in Scotland or the publishers site - Birlinn - where you can place an order for it if you wish. It’s due out in July and priced at £9.99 and I’ll be reviewing it as soon as I can lay hands on a copy.

Yesterday I got a nice email from Mark Reyner over at Bruichladdich. I’d been trying to use their website contact system for a while to get in contact but had been stopped due to the system of ‘pop up’ windows that are generated when you select who you want to contact. My web development conmpany got the email for me.

Anyway part of the email I received was about the Bruichladdich Blog - I didn’t even know that they had one. It can be found at http://web.mac.com/realmalt/Site/Blog/Blog.html. They have an RSS feed here too which makes it really easy to get updates to your inbox.

Slainte

Since its purchase and reopening in 2001 the Bruichladdich distillery has been showing a healthy imagination in its marketing and a variety in the types of whisky it releases. I remember in early 2004, while touring with a theatre company in Germany, being impressed by the market penetration they had achieved in even quite small German towns, noting a few large and professional displays in wine and spirit shops.
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Just as a good whisky matures over the years so do our taste buds. My first experiences of single malts were at the age of 18, and thinking back to the types that I enjoyed then they were vastly different to those that I now favour. Back then I appreciated smoothness; the soft, sometimes almost honeyed flavours of the Speyside malts, Glenfiddich, Glenmorangie, and with Glenlivet the undoubted king. In many ways this reflected my tastes in food, which were only just branching out from a fairly bland British culinary upbringing. Just as I appreciated a good steak over a modest stew, I could recognise the quality of rich smooth malts over the rougher blends.

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