Scotland: Single malt whisky through the producing distilleries: history, making and tasting
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Whisky...

War to whisky fakers

Whisky, whiskey, rye, bourbon etc... All this terms evoke a strong alcohol, made from cereals. But whisky is much more than the spirit students use to enhance the effects of cola in their parties.

The aim of this site is to help its visitors to replace whisky in its global context and to point out the magic of this product.
Even if the different types op grain spirit are all very interesting to speak about, just as their production and production areas, this site is devoted to just one country: Scotland and just to one type of whisky: single malt whisky. Some pages about grain whisky have recently been added to this site in a near future, as there are so nice whiskies in this category too.
This does not mean there is no very nice blended whisky, but since this site is based on my own collection, I have to limit myself for financial reasons.

Whisky...

What can this site mean to you?

Whisky is not only a nice drink, but it's also a history, an industry and a culture. Just to help you to navigate on the hundreds pages of this site, here is a summary of the topics.

The production areas of Scotch Whisky

Even if there is no notion of "terroir", like for the wine in France, the whisky production is classified in several areas. If you look for more information about these areas, please have a look on the following pages:

To understand how malt whisky is made, just go to the following page:

Whisky has an history too. FIrst written trace about whisky (uisge beata in gaelic) were written during the fifteenth century. The history of Scotland is also punctuated with events directly or indirectly linked to whisky, which remains a major industry in Scotland.

Individual pages per distillery:

No less than 100 Scottish distilleries are described on this site. Some of them are closed, demolished or mothballed, and others are still active. The condition for a distillery to be described on the site is that I need to own at least one bottle of its production. To go quickly and easily to a distillery page, just use the menu on the right, listing all the distilleries on the site.

The market of whisky is very complex in Scotland, and distilleries are of course not the only actors in this major industry. To produce their whisky, distilleries need raw material, water and cereals, but also casks for maturation (most of them are second hand casks having contained sherry or bourbon), bottling plants but also outlets. Blenders (sometimes the distilleries do the job, but often this is done by independent blenders) and independent bottlers(often in a relation of love and hate) to sell whisky and brokers to help them to exchange their products.

Even if whisky is first of all a major industry in Scotland, it remains a nice consumer good and a source of many pleasures. It would be a shame to write about the distilleries without writing also about their product: the whisky.
That's why the bottles are presented on each distillery page with tasting notes. Three kinds of notes: notes by professionals (as far as they are available) on the left side of the page, my own notes on the right, and tasting notes of visitors of the site beneath. In that case, their name is indicated, and there is a summary page with all bottles described by visitors.

The bottles are listed is several tables, with a link to the distillery pages. The following tables are available:

This site is also interactive. All whisky enthusiasts are welcome on the forum (only in French by now, but if there is a need to extend it to English speaking visitors, there is no problem...) to discuss about Scotch Single Malt whisky.

FUrther, this site hosts your own tasting notes on simple request.

how to navigate?

To make navigation easier, each page (except the first one) contains two menus, one on the left (for general pages) and one on the right (individual distillery pages)

the colours

Menus and other graphical objects follow a colour scheme. The colours relate to production areas when distillery pages are concerned.

Explanation of the colours:

  • General purpose pages
  • Campbeltown
  • Central Highlands
  • Eastern Highlands
  • Islay
  • The Islands
  • Lowlands
  • Northern Highlands
  • Speyside
  • Western Highlands
Advertisements

The site is completely free of charge for the visitors, but not for its creator. Hosting costs, software to buy and the many hours to create and maintain the site are rather important.
That's why banners are proposed to whisky or Scotland professionals. The publicity is targeted on whisky and only advertisers who deal with the subject of the site are welcome to sponsor the site. If you'd like to see your own ads on the site, please contact me (see further)

On the other hand, Google offers a targeted system of advertisments (AdWords), and it would be a pity not to use it, as it generates (modest) incomes for the site.

Last but not least, if you liked this site, do not hesitate to tell this to other visitors, by writing some words on my guestbook.

Beside the pages of this site, a newsletter is published (not very often, due to a lack at time) If you want to get this newsletter e-mailed to you, please fill in the form below:

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Previous issues are available by clicking on the button "Newsletters" in the left menu, under "This site..."

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