Categorie: Tom’s Dram Diaries
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Single Estate Bus Whisky: sipping for a better world In the tiniest of hamlets called Bus, in the Dutch province Noord-Brabant, there is a small distillery of the same name to be found. Surrounded by farmland, the story of how whisky started dripping from the still there is a remarkable one. My dear whisky-and-food pairing…
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The Springbank Stallions play around with Kilkerran The Springbank Stallions convened again, as they do every year in January, in Campbeltown. With the big bicentennial year for Springbank approaching in 2028, we are quietly anticipating the festivities. Until that time, there was and is still 2026 and 2027 to deal with for the Stallions gathering.…
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The 2016 trend in a blog: Happy 210th birthday, Lagavulin Distillery! The year is 2026, and crazy as it sounds, it means ten years have passed since the famous Lagavulin Distillery on Islay celebrated the bicentennial. No matter how much I love Ardbeg and Laphroaig, who celebrated their 200th just one year earlier, I had to…
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Peaty winner at the first Dram1 Awards 2025 A brand new and consumer driven Whisky Award was announced somewhere mid-September and I thought it would be fun to partake in this. So, when the package arrived on the first day of October, I could not wait to get started. The rules are simple and laid…
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Ardnahoe cherishes it owns Appreciation Society The Ardnahoe Distillery Appreciation Society is quite a young Facebook group which has around 750 members. The participants are enthusiastic fans of one of the youngest distilleries on Islay. On Friday 5 September 2025, the first online tasting was undertaken, with no less than 7 samples tasted and enjoyed.…
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Distillery Exclusives from the stills at Caol Ila The Islay Home of Jonnie Walker. That is how owner Diageo markets the Caol Ila Distillery and its products these days when you set foot on the island. It joins the ranks of Clynelish, Cardhu and Glenkinchie, and coming with it was a big overhaul of the…
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Back to the year 2014 when Annandale was resurrected Annandale Distillery was a true gem to behold when I visited the location in 2014, ahead of a week in Campbeltown and on Islay. We were lucky to be received by Malcom Rennie (pictured), who was involved in starting up this long lost Lowland distillery in…
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Soapy whisky – tasting the phenomenon Every whisky enthusiast probably knows the story which I am about to introduce: that moment when you’re savouring what should be a beautiful whisky, only to be hit with notes that remind you of your grandmother’s lavender soap. My dear granny had these big blocks of soap in every…
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The glasses head-to-head test with Aberlour Having this blog opened new doors to meet likeminded people, and one of the new friends I made is Robbert from the Confession of a Whisky Freak blog. In this beautiful world we live in, it is entirely possible to get to know someone without ever meeting in person,…
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What to do when you have one full day on Islay? It seems like an age ago already, which confronts me with the speed of everyday life, but this entry to Tom’s Dram Diary is about my visit to Islay in January 2025. With only one full day on the island, we had to cram…