This is the second newsletter from whisky-distilleries.info. The number of subscribers has significantly increased during the last few months, and there now enough of them to justify the work needed to realize this newsletter. As I may remind the readers of this newsletter, my mother tongue is not English (but French). That's the reason why this newsletter is not always 100% grammatic-errors free...
I hope you won't mind....
It might sound strange to begin a whisky-newsletter with some information about a whisky site, rather than with other and important news about the whisky world. In fact the pretendtion of this newsletter is not to provide the whole world with exclusive first-hand information. This is the job of some professional journalists. I'm just a whisky lover trying to share the information I gather with other enthousiast whisky lovers around the world. And the way to do this is my website... For this reason, I consider information about what is happening on and around the site as potentially important.
As you subscribed to this newsletter, I imagine you have a good idea of the content of whisky-distilleries.info, but sometimes people not really realize the huge amont of information they can find on this site, which remains just one site amongst so many others.
First of all, it's important to know that it is just an informational site, with not link at all with the whisky industry, nor the whisky distribution circuits. I sell just nothing...
As a whisky lover, I tried to find out where my favorite drink is coming from and how it is made. And I wanted also to have a good idea of the bottles I own, even months after I tasted it for the last time.
The site whisky-distilleries.info is divided into 2 mains parts and hosts also a forum.
The general secion on the site includes information about the way whisky is made , the history of whisky (this section will be completed soon), some tips for drinking whisky, informations about independant bottlers, who owns the distilleries, the producing areas, a time-table putting the creation of disitlleries in their historical context, a short glossary, and even more...
The site reflects the bottles I own in my collection, and the tasting notes
are personal and do not have any pretention, even if they are very carefully
written.
This section is organised by distillery, with some general information about
the distillery itself and a description of each of the bottles, as far as
I tasted them... It might be interesting to notice I never drink more than
one dram a day, as I consider whisky as a pleasure but I am fully aware
of danger of alcoholic beverages... One of those dangers being the fact that
discovering pleasure lowers from the second dram already...
Tasting notes and comments from anybody are welcome and will be published.
The French section is rather active, and
lots of visitors notes are published.
Beside the individual pages, the 100
last tasted bottles, a table raking
the bottles by level of pleasure I experienced and another table listing
the bottles by pleasure/price ratio.
Last but not least, a forum is associated with the site. This forum is very active in French (as has been recognized as being the most active of all Frenchspeaking forums about whisky by the French Whisky Magazine).
The few last months, there were about 1000 messages a month on the forum, exclusively dedicated to single malt (and in fact, to Scotch single malt, even if there is a section dedicated to the other malts around the world).
If there is any interest for opening an English version of it, please let me know. On the other hand, there are plenty of good whisky forums around...
Belgium is renowned all around the world for the quality of its special beers. But untill recently, nobody dared making whisky in that country.
In fact, whisky and beer are made with the same raw materials, and it is rather surprising Belgium waited untill end 2004 to produce its first whisky. In fact, I should say "its first New Make Spirit", as there are about 2 other years to go before it will deserve the whisky denomination.
A very promising and interesting experience. Please read more about this new distillery on the site.
What does the appellation "Pure Malt" which is sometimes seen on a whisky bottle mean? In fact, there is no legal definition for this naming, nor there is any legal definition for other indications commonly used.
In order to create a kind of legal framework to clarify the different notions in the mind of consumers, the SWA (Scotch Whisky Association) launched a great debate with the major actors of the whisky industry and consumer protection associations. The confusion resulting from the current denominations has often served the whisky vendors.
The aim of the SWA is not to write a "code of good practices", but to prepare a new law which will apply to everybody and which will rule the trade of Scotch whisky.
After more than one year of discussion, the adopted terminology is:
All other namings will disappear:
But these denominations designating the type of whisky are not the only items where the SWA wants to see some changes. The name of the whisky itself draws its attention too. So, in the future, it will be forbidden to give a whisky the name of a distillery, unless it has been entirely produced by that distillery. However, this last point could conflict with existing trademark rights, and will take existing rights into consideration.
A greater protection for the traditional producing areas (Lowlands, Highlands, Speyside, Campbeltown and Islay) is also proposed.
The future will learn is if this changes will actually contribute to a clarification in the mind of consumers. For people who know the word "blended" means a mix of malt and grain whisky, it will not be so easy to see this name used for single malt mixes too.
This new denominations are proposed also because of some European regulations, where the term "blend" is accepted for any kind of whisky mixes, including single malt mixes. A recent example of this is the Ardbeg "Serendipity" accidentaly born from an accident in the warehouses, where Ardbeg and Glen Moray habe been mixed.
| Last update:
Saturday, 27-Sep-2008 13:45:19 CEST
Thu 29 07 2010, 18:06 - 98 visiteurs au cours de la dernière heure et 13 visiteurs sur le site en ce moment. Copyright:Jean-Marie Putz (2003-2007) |
Whisky is an alcoholic drink. Let's prefer quality to quantity as the abuse of alcohol beverages can damage the health. Consuming alcoholic drinks during pregnancy, even in small quantities, can seriously affect the health of the child. Consumption of alcohol impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems.