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Distilled. Issue 8

In Issue 8 we explore the bucolic chintz of England’s Cotswolds, ‘craft’ distilling in Midleton, Ireland, and take ease in the sylvan glade that is Daftmill, Scotland’s only single farm estate distillery. We visit Switzerland in search of green fairies (and blue absinthe), and unveil the mystery behind whiskey ‘distilled in Indiana’. Dessert is a dish best served cold; what better ending than the wit and wisecracks of Dorothy Parker?


Aultmore 12 Year Old

Tasted

It ís always a joy to see a hidden gem liberated from the obscurity of blends and bottled on its own. This is a playful vixen of a malt that restores ones faith in Speyside with a skittish, gingery…

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Ben Nevis 10 Year Old

Tasted

Our love of Ben Nevis is well documented, but this latest iteration is single malt on steroids, full stop. Drinking older than its stated age, this is big and brash with a generous helping of peated…

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Brugal Añejo

Tasted

A blend of rums aged between three and five years, this is a hidden value when it comes to spirits, putting paid to the stereotype of sweet, cloying rums with its dry, austere…

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I work the late shift. It’s rare for a distillery owner to actually distil, but I got into this because I want to make things.
— Todd Leopold, Leopold Bros
 

From Scotland to Smögen, With Love

Archives

West Sweden is a land of greenery, rock and woodland; brightness and rain – Scottishly so. Driving north from Gothenburg it is easy to imagine being in Scotland with the edgy breeze threatening to tip over into rain at any moment, against a busy grey tundra of sky…

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Rocky Mountain Revivalist

Archives

Todd Leopold is perched on a bar stool in his distillery’s cavernous tasting room. His phone pings away in the front pocket of his well-worn overalls as he scratches at his graying beard. Comfortable and animated, he is holding forth about…

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The Wizard of Walkerville

Archives

The Detroit River flows for a short twenty-four miles, emptying Lake St. Clair into Lake Erie while forming the border between southwestern Ontario and the state of Michigan. It was here, on the Canadian side, that legendary distiller Hiram Walker produced his first barrel of whisky in 1858…

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If you make a statement on a label it has to be true and it has to be the whole truth. Like a witness statement, either you shut up or you tell the whole truth and nothing else.
— Pår Caldenby, Smögen Distillery