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With exciting announcements on the horizon for The GlenDronach and The BenRiach, we look back on Gavin Smith's interview for Whiskeria with the three distilleries' then-newly appointed Whisky Maker, Rachel Barrie, back in Autumn 2017.

Looking for something different? Look no further!

At The Whisky Shop our motto is ‘unlocking the mystery of whisky…’ and sometimes the best way to do that is to taste something completely different. We work with some of the best-loved distilleries and independent bottlers in the country to find spectacular single casks just for our customers, so you’re guaranteed to experience something new! Here’s our top picks only available at The Whisky Shop:

Little did local barley farmer and school teacher Alexander Reid know, when he took out a licence for what was to become The Macallan distillery in 1824, that almost two centuries later the brand of whisky still made on that site would be celebrated as one of the world’s greatest malts. Nor could he have envisaged that his modest two-still enterprise would have been transformed into what is arguably the most distinctive whisky distillery of them all.

The Voodoo Rooms is an award-winning bar hidden in the heart of Edinburgh. Housed in a former gin palace, replete with original furnishings, and even genuine Victorian graffiti, it's a labyrinth of speakeasy-style bars, impressive dining spaces and a twinkling ballroom.

Today it serves some of the most innovative and impressive drinks in the Scottish capital. Back in 2016, our Whiskeria team met with cocktail conjurer Lachlan to discover exactly what alchemy was afoot for Edinburgh's famous festival season. You'll be pleased to hear that revisiting his creations this year is still possible – visit The Voodoo Rooms website to find out exactly what's on the menu for 2018.

The Viking Legend continues with Highland Park’s latest release

Highland Park is a distillery with a rich heritage. Of course, almost every distillery visitor centre will tell you something similar, but Highland Park has a heritage unlike any other in Scotland: Viking heritage. The Orkney Islands have only been part of Scotland for 600 years, having been ruled by Viking Earls for 600 years previous. Highland Park itself was founded by a direct Viking descendant, Magnus Eunson, in 1798. To this day, one in three islanders has Viking DNA. It’s this strong connection with ancestral roots that sets Highland Park apart as the single malt with Viking soul.

The latest release from The Lakes Distillery honours The Border Marches of the Late Middle Ages, with a blend of Scottish and English malt whiskies

The Lakes Distillery in Cumbria was officially opened in 2014 as one of just a handful of whisky distilleries to be founded in England in more than a century. Indeed, whisky production itself had been absent from the country since the closure of Lea Valley distillery in 1905, until the partnership of Hicks & Healy began production of a Cornish single malt whisky in 2003. The Lakes Distillery is due to release its first single malt whisky this summer, but consumers will be more familiar with its blended offering, The ONE, which holds a unique position as the only British Blended Whisky, combining single malts and grain whiskies from across the British Isles. The latest release from the distillery takes this philosophy in a new direction.

Known in Victorian times as ‘the whisky capital of the world’ (read more by Brian Wilson in last summer’s Whiskeria), Campbeltown these days is less a distilling metropolis and more a sleepy seaside settlement, better befitting its remote location on the Kintyre peninsula.

Nevertheless, for three days each summer, it reawakens to welcome whisky’s most illustrious characters and avid pilgrims for the three-day Campbeltown Malts Festival, held in the week preceding Islay’s famous Fèis Ìle. This year, we were lucky enough to be counted among them as guests of Glen Scotia, on the generous invitation of Sales Director, Andy Calder.

As Charlie MacLean so expertly phrases it in his review of their summer 2018 releases, “Until recently, Glen Scotia was a sleeping beauty. The kiss that woke her up in 2014 came from the current owner in the form of substantial investment.” This week, we learned just what a beauty the revived distillery is…

Famed for some of the most expensive bottles in the world, The Macallan will look a bit different from now on…

The Macallan distillery was established in 1824 and has become one of the best known and most collectable single malt brands in the world. With a history of almost two centuries, a secure place as one of the world’s best-selling single malt Scotch whiskies and bottles reaching hundreds of thousands of pounds at auction, you could forgive the distillery for adhering to the old adage ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’. But that’s not how things are done at The Macallan.

Glenmorangie release the Grand Vintage Malt 1989

Founded in 1843, Glenmorangie is one of the Highlands’ most distinguished single malt whiskies. The name, oft mispronounced as Glenmor-AN-gie instead of Glen-MOR-angie (rhyming with orange-y), is said to be derived from the Scots Gaelic for ‘Vale of Tranquillity’ and to see the distillery it is clear how the moniker was acquired. Situated on the banks of the Dornoch Firth in Ross-shire, the distillery began life as Morangie Farm, latterly home to a brewery before Andrew Matheson, a former distillery manager, bought the farm and converted the Morangie brewery to a distillery, duly Christened Glenmorangie. Using two second-hand gin stills, Andrew set out to produce his single malt.

From a humble grocer to the world’s best-selling Scotch whisky

With almost 200 years of history, Johnnie Walker is synonymous with whisky. Visit almost any bar in the world and you can be sure to see the striding man on at least one of the whiskies on the shelf. From humble beginnings in a Kilmarnock grocer, Johnnie Walker has built a loyal following and impeccable reputation based on the quality of the liquid. Perhaps surprisingly for the namesake of the world’s best-selling Scotch whisky, the eponymous Johnnie Walker was teetotal. So just how did a non-drinker become an icon of whisky?