We are getting very excited here at The WSD HQ. It is now just 60 days until our 10th birthday!!! But why wait 60 days to start celebrating? So we have put own current 2 exclusive bottles on sale with 10% off. That's a festive present just crying out to be bought!!!!
Yes, it is the return of our most complicated titled sale!!!! Now in its second year. We have again selected 25 fine whiskies across the price spectrum to entice you to buy a little seasonal cheer at a knock down price.
We are going to show you some of the entries to our cocktail competition. There has been much clamouring for more detail on the winning entry as voted for by a panel of independent judges.
"Darth Mixer" by Katherine Keough-Jack
"Why this works for me - it not only looks fab, its a simple cocktail to make for a novice like myself. It includes two great whiskies which have worked better than expected together. Darth Mixer is fun and quick enough to make for those impromptu get-togethers that occur! The beginning of this cocktail has a taste of the 15 Years Old Glenfarclas, followed by a tropical storm then alcoholic tasting pineapples. Finished with a smooth but eye opening zing."
Recipe
Ingredients
4measures pineapple juice
1 measure orange juice
2 measures Glenfarclas 15 Years Old
1 measure Glenfarclas 105
2 measures red Grenadine syrup (more if required to make it blood red)
2tbsp lime juice
2tbsp lemon juice
Slice of lemon
Sprinkle of sugar
Method
Gently stir the pineapple juice, orange juice and Glenfarclas 15 Years Old together and strain into the cocktail mixer, removing any bits from the juice
Add the lemon and lime juice and shake (not stir!)
Add in the Glenfarclas 105 to the mixer and gently stir til your heart's content (and its all mixed together)
Add the Grenadine, 2 measures should be enough but more should be added if needed to create a blood red colour.
Shake well to spread evenly throughout.
Decorate the glass with a wedge of lemon and lime, and sprinkle of sugar around the edge.
We have launched the next phase of our Winter Sale with 15 products with £5 off or more (well now there's 16). This has nothing to do with Black Friday as they last until the end of the year! These offers are available on-line and in our shop and cover some very drinkable whiskies and at now even more affordable prices. Offer ends 1st Jan & whilst stocks last.
Stuck for that whisky lover's Christmas present? Looking for inspiration for a gift for a funky t-shirt fan? Want to make a political statement? And support a worthy cause? Then this is your answer - The Dufftown Whisky Region T-Shirt! Only available from The Whisky Shop Dufftown in sizes from Small to 3XL. Here is the T-Shirt in it's full glory:
We solved our modelling problem (none of us wanted to do it) by bringing in a professional and friend of the shop Yolanda. I think that this is a better pose than we could have struck.
Click here for our full range of clothing. We have teamed up with Yolanda to raise money for Scottish Association for Mental Heath in 2016. We will be donating £1 from the sale of every t-shirt sold as part of our fund raising campaign.
We aim to raise a £1000 for this charity in the next 12 months. If you would like to help us straight away then please go to our donations page.
We also wish Yolonda all the best in the Miss Galaxy Competition where is is representing Moray.
There is the count down to Christmas. The count down to the New Year. Here at The Whisky Shop Dufftown we have another more important one. It is only 86 days until we are 10 years old!
6 February 2006 was when Mike bought the shop and created The Whisky Shop Dufftown. Things have changed a lot in those 10 years and there will be a few more changes before our birthday. We have come a very long way. Here are just a few of the changes:
We have increased the shelf space by 50%.
We painted over the tobacco-smoke-stained ceiling.
The value of stock is now over 20 times greater than back in 2006.
We got rid of the peg board partitions.
We have more than doubled the number of whiskies available.
We got rid of the fake grapes and plastic vines.
We gave the shop a distinctive logo and colour scheme.
The list goes on....
We have big plans to celebrate our 10th birthday. We will be having special events during Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival 2016 and our own Whisky Shop Dufftown Autumn Festival.
We will also have a set of products to mark the occasion. Obviously we will have our own exclusive whisky which will be bottled in the week before our birthday so it will be ready for our birthday. We may even have another one to mark our 11th Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival. There will be the obligatory Glencairn Blenders glass. Still the most practical way to enjoy your dram. But there will also be a few surprises.
Each one of our celebration products will be connected with a characteristic that we (mainly Mike) has had to display to make it through our first 10 years. Don't worry we are also making plans for the future and in January we will be filling a cask at Ardnamurchan Distillery which will be ready for our 20th birthday (we hope).
The first item is now available. It is a fabulously creative T-Shirt from Whisky Impressions and sports our anniversary logo in the centre. It also promotes Dufftown as a whisky region in its own right. It should be worn with pride. Please note this T-Shirt should not be used as an actual map. View our range here.
We are going to show you some of the entries to our cocktail competition. Here is the first recipe. This won the chairman's special prize for being a cocktail that actually tasted of whisky.
"The Dufftawn(y)" By Chris Jameson
This cocktail combines two of my favourite tipples, a good bourbon matured single malt whisky and chilled tawny port.
Clearly the whisky is the centrepiece here, however the port adds an extra dimension and some warmth (despite being chilled…) not to mention a beautiful hue to the cocktail, with the vermouth adding a touch of sweetness, balanced by the ever present (in cocktails at least) Angostura bitters.
Serving over an iceball means the cocktail remains chilled, but the melt rate of such a large piece of ice means theres minimal dilution, always a problem with some cocktails! Remaining chilled is vital to ensure the flavour of the port is maintained, its counter-intuitive, however theres no denying that tawny port tastes far better when chilled.
Recipe:
2 measures of Balvenie 12 Year Old Single Barrel (or if you have it, the 15yo Bourbon, is even better)
1/2 a measure of sweet vermouth
1/2 a measure of CHILLED tawny port (we use Warres Optima 10)
A dash of Angostura bitters
Add the ingredients to an ice filled glass, stir a few times and then strain into a tumbler with an iceball (or large icecubes) to serve.
We have 2 new products in stock which are only available to those who make the effort to come and visit is in Dufftown. They are 2 extra high quality Bourbons.
Blanton's Single Barrel Bourbon Original (£39.95)
Blanton's Single Barrel Bourbon Gold Edition (£56.95)
At The Whisky Shop Dufftown Autumn Festival this year we have been continuing our search for the best "Blend" or "Blend of Malts" in our Blind Blends competition - basically anything that's not a single malt or single grain. We are very liberally minded at The Whisky Shop Dufftown. This is different to being Maltstock relaxed. We have so far put 27 different blends through this competition.
Guests to our festival could sample 5 whiskies in a blind tasting and vote for their favourite. The winner from the same event the last 2 years running, Hankey Banister Heritage, went up against 4 new challengers: Spice King from Wemyss, Feathery from Spencerfield, Rock Oyster from Douglas Laing and Glenborrodale from Adelphi. As in very other years each whisky got a bunch of votes. Each person has a whisky and each whisky has its persons!!
Thus year was a fascinating competition and we were really pleased at the number of people who took part. OK we are all malt fanatics but we should not be closed on to blends particularly the exciting new crop of boutique blends that are coming through.
In second place was Feathery which is a blend of malts all matured in sherry casks and that really shines through. But just pulling away on the last day was Adelphi's Glenborrodale which is a vatting of whiskies that was made in 2001 in a refill ex-Sherry Butt. The composition is likely to have been Macallan, Highland Park, peated Bunnahabhain, Glenrothes and possibly Glengoyne. When Adelphi acquired the cask they did a bit of their alchemy and added a good splash (half a cask or so) of Glenrothes 8 Years Old first fill ex-Sherry. Why not? Get it whilst it lasts!
Our guests had a lot of fun with the competition this year which we were very pleased with. Not least as we choose and supply all the whiskies for this competition.
