Inbox - May 30, 2014

Welcome to this week's Inbox.  For those that have recently discovered us, Inbox is our weekly round up of whisky news and PR material that has found its way in to our email inbox. It was created as we cannot write full articles or do justice to every piece received. It features items from around the world of whisky and is published by us each Friday.

Within Inbox we aim to write a few lines detailing each press release/piece of news/PR event that we have received and provide links, where possible, for you to find out further information.  Here is the news that has caught our attention from this week ...

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Famous Grouse - Gets Royal seal of approval

The Famous Grouse Experience, which is based at the Glenturret distillery in Perthshire, welcomed royalty this week.  The Earl and Countess of Strathearn (the Scottish title held by Prince William and Kate) paid a visit to see the completion of £250,000 investment work to the visitor centre, which they officially reopened.  The Royal pair were treated to a private distillery tour, a tutored tasting of the Famous Grouse range and became the first people to 'bottle their own' Glenturret single malt from a new cask within the visitor centre shop (pictured, above).

Stuart Cassells, General Manager, The Famous Grouse Experience, commented: “It was an absolute pleasure to welcome The Earl and Countess of Strathearn to the Experience. With such strong links to this area through their Scottish titles, we couldn’t think of anyone more perfectly placed to open our new-look visitor areas. All the staff here at the Experience won’t be forgetting this day anytime soon.” 

Glenglassaugh -Two old whiskies
The east Highland distillery of Glenglassaugh has announced the release of two high-end single malts, which have been aged for 35 and 41 years respectively.  The bottlings also announce the re-launch of their 'Massandra Collection' series.  The whiskies is this range are all finished in casks used at the legendary Massandra winery, the oldest winery in the Crimea and favourite of former Tsars.

The Massandra Connection 35 years old (pictured, left) has been finished in ex-Madeira casks and bottled at the natural cask strength of 41.7% ABV.  The Massandra Connection 41 years old (pictured, right) has been finished in ex-sherry casks and has been bottled at the natural cask strength of 44.5% ABV.  They will be available worldwide, although details of numbers and price were included in the press release.

Alistair Walker, the Sales Director for Glenglassaugh, said: "In 2010 Glenglassaugh brought over the first casks from the Crimea to create the unique new Massandra Connection series with five distinctive finishes - Sherry, Muscat, Madeira, Port and Aleatico. It was the first time that the Massandra winery had allowed its casks to be exported and also the first time that Crimean fine wine casks had been used by a Scottish distillery for finishing. These new expressions shows the subtle effect of the Massandra casks on our coastal Highland malt.” 

Laphroaig - Further new bottlings
The iconic Islay distillery of Laphroaig has announced the release of two more new single malts - the Cairdeas 2014 and the Cask Strength Batch #6.  This follows on from the recently released Select, which we have just sampled - click here to read our review. 

This year's batch of Cairdeas, which is released each year at the Islay Festival, has been matured in first-fill ex-bourbon casks before being matured for just under two years in ex-Amontillado sherry casks.  It is bottled at 51.4% ABV and will cost £65 a bottle.  It is available at the distillery during the Islay Festival and will be available via www.laphroaig.com from June 2.  The Cask Strength Batch #6 is bottled at 58% ABV and costs £47.50 a bottle.  It is available now from Laphroaig's website and will shortly be in selected specialist retailers.