It’s easy to ignore vodka. You put it with cola and you taste cola. You put it with orange and you taste, well, you get the idea. If you’re an elite bar, you’re probably more excited about gin when it comes to white spirits for classic cocktails. Some bars even famously (well, famous within the industry) shun the drink altogether. Top New York bar…

The world’s first female master blender in Scotch whisky, Rachel Barrie, was originally destined for the medical profession – but her nose scuppered that particular line of work.  “I left school to study medicine and realised I had a very sensitive sense of smell. When I started doing anatomy and carving up dead bodies I realised it was not for me – the…

On the basis everyone wants an ‘experience’ these days, every drink away from home should either be an occasion or, at the very least, at an event. Ideally both. The days of going out for a mug of insipid tea or instant coffee and a stale sandwich served by uncaring, supercilious staff, are fading into the past – or should be. But who…

To misquote Jane Austen completely: “It is a truth – not, I think, universally acknowledged – that a single man in possession of a good fortune and after an excellent meal must be in want of herbal bitters to aid the digestion.” Although it’s hard to imagine any of Ms Austen’s heroes, let alone her heroines, swigging back (and surviving) a swift jigger of…

“IT’S THE DARK MATTER of the spirits world – it pervades everything but we don’t see it,” says spirits historian David Wondrich. He is talking about baijiu, the high-strength white spirit from China that in 2012 sold a mind-dissolving 1.16bn 9-litre cases (IWSR).  To offer some category context, baijiu is more voluminous than vodka, whisky (with or without an e), rum,…

The market for whisky in India is so vast, complicated, obscured and diverse it’s all but impossible to do it justice in any snapshot or soundbite. Last year, though, I was given a tiny taste of its extremes while a guest of Indian whisky maker Amrut in Bangalore. We had toured the distillery, tasted rich and wonderful new Amrut whisky, and were heading…

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…