________________________________________ ON ALMOST EVERY ‘whisky map’ of Scotland there is a small area in the north east which boasts such a concentration of distilleries that it is marked with an inset square and treated in detail away from the main cartography. This area is officially designated as the Speyside malt whisky-producing region, centred on the towns and villages of…

IT WOULD BE SOMETHING OF AN UNDERSTATEMENT TO SAY THAT THE IRISH WHISKEY INDUSTRY HAS HAD ITS UPS AND DOWNS. When the great distillery-bagger and journalist Alfred Barnard toured Britain visiting every whisky distillery in existence during the mid-1880s, he looked over 129 in Scotland and 28 in Ireland. Yet a century later Scotland still boasted 81, with 96 being in production by 1991, while…

FROM THE LATE 1990S ONWARDS THERE WAS A PREDICTABILITY ABOUT SCOTCH WHISKY SALES. Almost every year the Scotch Whisky Association would announce another record-breaking performance in terms of volume and value in export markets around the world. Scotch was thriving and achieving growth in a comfortingly diverse range of locations.  And by ‘scotch’ the implication was, essentially, blended scotch because, despite the…

WHISKY is now being produced by more distilleries in a greater number of locations around the world than ever before. But for all this increasing diversity, a small area of north east Scotland known as Speyside remains the global heartland of whisky production. At the last count, Speyside was home to 46 operational malt distilleries out of a Scottish total of 101, and…

WHEN IAN MACLEOD DISTILLERS decided to relaunch Tamdhu single malt after purchasing the mothballed Speyside distillery from the Edrington Group in 2011 it needed to do something that would make this previously ultra-low key brand stand out from the crowd. It settled on some distinctive packaging options, but when it came to the liquid itself it struck gold. As managing director…