Highlights online this month include:

  • Great escapes: This August we stir the imagination and provoke conversations over our glasses by digging into a form of escapism through our bottles, and how we approach whisky differently. Ambassador Dean Marinello has his take on the great Society flavour escape.
  • Cask of the month: Last month, SMWS ambassador Lee ‘Connas’ Connor brought you his ‘Anatomy of a Cask’. Here, he gives you the lowdown on some intriguing maturation processes from our latest Outturn. First up is Cask No. 64.130: Toast rack, a custom-made hogshead featuring both American and European oak.
  • Where flavour comes alive – Spicy & Dry: With many of us on holiday or summering somewhere nice, it’s an ideal time to journey into the realm of flavours. As Julien Willems explains, Spicy & Dry flavour profile drams provide the perfect form of sensory escapism.
  • Knowledge – whisky and water: What does a drop of water really do to whisky flavour? From a scientific perspective, we don’t actually know that much, which is why postgraduate research student Sally MacGarry is collaborating with The Scotch Whisky Research Institute (SWRI) to find out more. All she needed was the help of a handful of SMWS ambassadors from across Europe…
  • Whisky and beer: The SMWS has teamed up with the kindred spirits behind the Wasted Degrees brewery in Blair Atholl to create a unique whisky-influenced beer using four of our casks, which will then return to our warehouse to mature Society whisky. Richard Goslan finds out more about this heavenly hauf’n’hauf collaboration.
  • Whisky place-names: In May 2020 in issue 47 of Unfiltered, we spoke to Jake King, a Gaelic researcher from the Sabhal Mòr Ostaig campus of the University of the Islands and Highlands on the Isle of Skye. Today, his book, The A to Z of Whisky Place-Names: Landscape, Language & Invention is out in the wild, exploring the place-names found on whisky bottles and providing both their identity and their origin. Mads Schmoll caught up with Jake at The Vaults to find out more.
  • Whisky History – mousers: Apparently, there are cat people and dog people, but distillery dogs are usually vessels used by workers to remove whisky illicitly from warehouse casks and transport it home. Distillery cats, on the other hand, have always been the real, living deal, as Gavin D Smith reports to mark International Cat Day on Monday, 8 August.
  • Distillery Profile – Eden Mill: Eden Mill in St Andrews has had a stop-start existence when it comes to producing whisky, but new ownership and a new home mean single malt is set to become the star of the show again, finds Tom Bruce-Gardyne.
  • Whisky History – King George IV, Glenlivet and the birth of a legal industry: This month marks 200 years since British monarch King George IV came to Edinburgh, sported a kilt and savoured more than a drop of illegal Highland whisky. His visit had huge repercussions for a future vision of Scotland, the promotion of tartan and for the Scotch whisky industry, as Margarete Marie discovers in her deep and fascinating dive into the truth behind “The Real Glenlivet”.
  • SMWS ambassadors: The Society’s global brand ambassador John McCheyne spent time with our branch in Austria recently, where he caught up with the next generation of SMWS superfans helping to spread our message far and wide. Here’s what happened when Old & Dignified (sorry John!) met our Young & Spritely ambassador Hannah Unterguggenberger.
  • Share a dram with… Euan Campbell, SMWS Spirits Manager.