Day three (we were officially in holiday mood and lost track of what day it was), the car is getting heavier already, and with the places still to visit in mind, we feared that we needed to repack the car for our trip home, and use the backseats that we had left clear “for no…
Category: visit
Trip to Spirit of Speyside 2014 – first leg
After an easy boat ride, we landed in Newcastle at the predicted time of 9 in the morning, local time. Due to Ansgar’s perseverance of never being late for any appointment (read: we arrived three hours early in Ijmuiden), we had been amongst the first on board and were positioned with the bikers. First on…
.5 – Mashing – 2013 / 2014
Arran scenery When all excitement on Islay and Arran still on our minds, before we knew it we were home again. One thing was sure though – we would keep doing this and even expand our madness. The year already had been good, (it is only June 2013 in this timeline) but coming back from…
.4 – Milling – 2013
Arran scenery A week of driving around on Islay was good. Sadly, we missed Ardbeg day because of our boat left before the distillery could legally open their doors, but we managed to get one of the collectible Ardbog festival bottlings, that we opened once we arrived at the self catering house on the Isle of…
.3 – Malting – 2013
Bruichladdich sunshine A smooth boat ride to Islay on the first true morning of our vacation brought us to the magical island. We landed on Lagavulin day, but missed most of that because we needed to check in to the bothy first. Our real start would be the Sunday: Bruichladdich day. We could not have…
.2 – Growing (pains) – 2012 / 2013
As can be seen in the first part, we had developed a serious taste for everything whisky: Distilleries (breweries too), festivals, nosings & tastings, whisky specialist shops and not in the least of all, Scotland. Although we were well aware that besides Scotland there are many more whisky producing countries, Scotland stole our hearts. Among…
.1 – Planting the barley – 2012 and before
It has never been much of a secret that Thomas liked a sip whisky every now and then. He has been drinking the stuff regularly and visited a festival every once in a while, and at the point where he was in between jobs he decided to investigate whisky on a deeper level. Keeping responsibility…
Discovering the Swedish spirits from the Mackmyra Distillery
On the journey of Whisky Speller in discovering the wonderful world of whisky we encountered some lovely bottlings of Mackmyra, the first Swedish whisky distillery. We got curious about these bottlings and wanted to learn more about the distillery and the people behind it so we contacted Angela D’Orazio, the Master Blender of Mackmyra. She…
Whisky Festival Noord Nederland 2014
Road trip! For weeks we were looking forward to the end of March, the moment the Whisky Festival Noord Nederland was going to be held again for the 9th time. Every year this stands for a meeting of a changing and growing group of friends, enjoying a great whiskyfestival together and exploring the world of…
a first time…
that would be Thomas There is a first time for everything. Thomas was asked to tell something about whisky on March 27, 2014, which would be his deflowering of talking to a group of people. Never having done a presentation of any kind before (he knows, right… he is only 40, so still young enough…
the Balvenie – rarities nosing and tasting
We had the pleasure to be more or less invited to join a tasting of rare and exclusive Balvenies. This tasting with thirty-some people would consist of 6 whiskies, of which 2 were bottlings from recent distillates and four were older distillates bottled by independent bottlers in the late 80’s, begin 90’s. Organiser was collector John de Vries…
Zuidam Distillers, genuine Dutch masters
Zuidam, Dutch distiller of fine spirits and liqueurs, located in Baarle Nassau, in the south of the Netherlands, close to the Belgian border indisputable the most fragmented village to which both Belgium and the Netherlands have parts of their claims. Almost a year ago we have had the pleasure of visiting the distillery, being guided…
WhiskySpeller 