The Sleeping Beauty..?

  You know the feeling when starting something and just not getting it to complete satisfaction? It just seems not to “do” what you want it to “do”? For us, this happened to what we experienced the morning after the Benelux release of “the Beast of Dufftown” in Brussels, where we had a chat with…

Stand together, fight together

It is the beginning of July 2015, Wimbledon is in its final stage, the Formula-1 circus has landed in Silverstone, and here – in the Netherlands – the Tour the France is about to kick off during the hottest day recorded in years. This takes us to go mesmerizing about what we were doing only…

A lot of But(t)s, howevers and althoughs

Our first time in Scotland was only in 2012. In our fully packed two week programme we had managed to squeeze in a two-night stay in a (great) B&B, see all of the eight distilleries and fall in love with the Queen of the Hebrides: Islay. This was at the start of our journey, and…

#WhiskyFabric Gathering – Feis Ile 2015

Plans for the Feis Ile 2015 festivities were made over a year before, where online chats began about the 200th year celebrations of Ardbeg and Laphroaig and how cool it would be to be able to meet all of the #WhiskyFabric people on Islay. Most people we had met only online so far, and we…

the Beast of Dufftown

Over the past few years, we have tasted our fair share of Mortlach whiskies, and except for the rare Diageo bottlings, most of them were only available from independent bottlers, and most of the ones we have tasted we in private collections other than our own (hence the lack of proper notes). Times change; Diageo announced mid…

The Spirit of Speyside Bake Off

The Whisky Shop Dufftown recently ran a competition to find the best Speyside whisky inspired Cupcake of Muffin. Contestors had to think whisky, and invent a whisky inspired cupcake or muffin. Of course a (well available) Speyside whisky had to be either in the cupcake, or had to fit the recipe in a pairing. After a couple…

The Speyside Incident

This is what we called it amongst ourselves for the last year because the Police had asked us not to talk about the incident online (close to impossible for bloggers, we tell ya) until the perpetrator was caught, and here is our breaking news from earlier today: Ladies and Gentlemen: they’ve got ‘em! The guy…

Benromach – touch, feel, smell and experience…

  Recently we received a set of samples from the Benromach Distillery, their lovely 10 years old and the Organic 2008. The 10 years old consists of whisky from 80% ex-Bourbon barrels, 20% ex-Sherry hogsheads and had a final finishing year in first fill ex-Oloroso casks. The Organic 2008 is a certified Organic whisky from…

A Sensory trip through the Seasons with Martine Nouet

  After an amazing 10 course opening dinner we told you all about in an earlier post, we had some more food and whisky combinations during the Whisky Festival Noord Nederland. We were lucky enough to have obtained tickets to another of Martine Nouet‘s masterclass where she paired eight different bites – four sweet and four…

WFNN 2015 opening dinner

  The earlier mentioned WFNN tenth anniversary opening dinner was in one word; fantastic. As we might have hinted on some occasions, we are experimenting with food and whisky for some time already, in order to find what fits well in combination with one another. We got tipped that the organisation had planned a ten-course…

Ten years old

  In Groningen, up North in the Netherlands, the Whisky Festival Noord Nederland (WFNN) has celebrated its tenth anniversary. Because we have been regular visitors to this festival and always had fun, we decided to dig deep into our pockets, and have them entertain us during this extra-special edition from Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon….

whisky and food pairing

  Late March 2015, Spring has just begun and we were invited to a whisky and food pairing in our own city of Almere, the Netherlands. Almere does not have a rich history of whisky (nor, for that matter, a history at all), but the organisers had managed to get about 25 people together in…