The inaugural collection, hosted by the global whisky auction platform Whisky Auctioneer, achieved a final hammer price of £43,614 from 19 specially curated lots.  Joe Wilson, head curator and spirits specialist at Whisky Auctioneer, said: “It has been a privilege for us to support the OurWhisky Foundation in providing not just a platform for this sale, but also to promote the contributions of…

The Indian arm of the global liquor major Pernod Ricard last month signed an MOU (memorandum of understanding) with the Maharashtra government to build India’s largest malt distillery with an investment up to €200m. This was with the sole intention to reduce dependency on Scotch imports for the Indian market. With two of its domestic blended whisky brands (Royal Stag and Blender’s Pride) already produced…

In December, Bacardi took majority control of Teeling Whiskey – six years after the Bermuda-based spirits group first invested in the brand in a move that has always appeared to be a shrewd one. Since it began producing in its Dublin city centre distillery in 2015, Teeling has been the most likely of Irish whiskey’s new wave to challenge the hegemony of the Pernod-backed Irish…

What is Naked Malt’s vision for the future? Duff: “Our vision is for bartenders across the world to choose Naked Malt as a great whisky for their cocktails and furthermore to recommend Naked Malt to their guests as a whisky that not only tastes great, but also shows the versatility of the whisky in their serves. As part of our ambition to be the go-to whisky for sour serves, we want to…

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of the South African wine industry, and in particular the women behind it, it’s useful to gauge the scale of the country’s operations. According to South Africa Wine Industry information & Systems (SAWIS) 2023, an estimated 1.8m tonnes of grapes were crushed, producing 917 million litres of wine. In 2022, 18 million glasses of SA wine were consumed worldwide every…

Named after the pioneering mother of contemporary dance, Isadora Duncan, ‘Isadora’ is a whisky maker’s edition with only 900 individually numbered bottles. “We aimed to create an elegant and timeless sherry-led whisky with a modern twist, free from traditional constraints,” said Sarah Burgess, The Lakes Distillery whisky maker. To mark its launch, The Lakes is holding a charitable prize draw to win bottle number…

When it comes to drinks that define nations, it’s tough to get more representative than sake is to Japan. It’s such a staple in its homeland that it more commonly goes by ‘nihonshu’ meaning simply ‘Japanese alcoholic drink’. But despite the history and tradition that sake shares with its domestic market, its popularity has been in a prolonged freefall. According to Japanese market research company…