New products

It is a great time to be a peat-freak. The popularity of the bold and smokey malts has lead producers to create an ever increasing variety of expressions for us to enjoy. We're seeing new heavily peated, some say over-peated expressions from many distilleries that are coming to us very young. That coupled with new peaty blends and blended malts and there is a flood of new tastes to explore.

The latest Islay to cross my desk is Smokehead. This one, from Ian Macleod Distillers has just barely made it to US shores and apparently is flying off store shelves. It bills itself as an Islay single malt Scotch whisky without an age statement or distiller, but don't let that fool you, this is a bottle worth having. I finally got a taste of this new immigrant this week, and you can too at Whiskies of the World on March 27th.

UPDATE:  "sources in Scotland" have confirmed that the list below is accurate, but no concrete details on which malts will make it to us here in the states. Also Caol Ila DE is coming to the states in October. Here's hoping we get to sample some of these newsmakers at WhiskyFest SF 2009!

A couple of days ago John Hansel clued us all into something special coming from Diageo regarding their malt whiskys on the 4th of September. This always leads to rampant specuation and more than a few google searches. I don't know exactly what is coming, but at least it has a name now;

The Manager's Choice Single Cask Selection.