Lochlea Overtone Over & Stout

The second and final Overtone release from Lochlea, a collaboration with Overtone Brewery, a Glasgow-based craft brewer, began with shared casks used to mature stout before being returned to Lochlea for whisky finishing.

Let's see what it's like!

#WemyssMalts Social Media Tasting

Steve has been organising Social Media Tastings for more than a decade now...

This time it was drams from Wemyss Malts, here's my thoughts!

White Peak Petites Eaux Proofing Part Deux

The 2nd release of 'Special Waters' from White Peak Distillery, this time from Red Wine casks.

The previous Special Waters release was my favourite dram of 2024 so this one had a lot to live up to!

Side by side: Lochlea Single Estate Core Range

Commissioned in August 2018 Lochlea Distillery was built in an old piggery in the middle of Lochlea Farm in Kilmarnock.

Featuring barley grown on the farm, the distillery has grown from strength to strength.

#BTC61 #BlindDrams Tasting Notes

These are my tasting notes and results from the Blind Tasting Consortium's 61st #BlindDrams evening.

These drams were picked by Cliff @CliffMann

Titanic 9yo Single Grain

A new distillery for me, but as with a lot of Irish distilleries all is not as it seems and it turns out it is from a distillery I know!

An unusual combination of rye, muscatel, and madeira cask finished grain whiskies.

Auchentoshan White Port Distillery Exclusive

Due to my wife's broken ankle our trip to Glasgow Whisky Festival didn't quite go to plan and I found myself at Auchentoshan distillery with Mike & Sam for what turned out to be a great tasting!

Whilst there we bought a bottle of the Distillery Exclusive White Port finish!

Retribution Chestnut Cask finish

I had a really interesting chat with Richard Lock from Retribution Distilling at Kendal Whisky Festival in December.

I tried a couple of his drams and he allowed me to take an sample of a Chestnut cask matured dram home to review!

Review of my whisky Year - 2025

Firstly thanks to all of you who have read my blog (c437,000 up from 296,000 last year) and follow me on social media.

This blog has been going for 9 years now and this is the 810th blog post! In that time I've reviewed over 2,190 whiskies! Let's review 2025!

Auchentoshan Distillery Visit

You'll find bottles of Auchentoshan in just about every supermarket, and you may have bought 1 or 2 when you started your whisky journey.

But at 40% it's unlikely you'd buy another, unless you visit the distillery!