Inbox - The Week's Whisky News (January 16, 2015)

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.  January is traditionally a quiet time of the year as the whisky industry wakes up slowly from its festive break but here are a couple of bits of news that has caught our attention from this week ...

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Douglas Laing & Co - Rocks your world
The independent bottler of Douglas Laing & Co have announced a new whisky.  The Rock Oyster has been created using malts from the Scottish islands - Arran, Islay, Jura and Orkney specifically - and joins the Big Peat, Scallywag and Timorous Beastie in their regionally themed blended malt range.  It will be produced in small batches.  The Rock Oyster is bottled at 46.8% ABV and is non chill-filtered and of natural colour.  It will be available in selected specialist whisky retailers shortly.  The recommended price will be £36.

Fred Laing, the Managing Director of Douglas Laing & Co, says: “Rock Oyster showcases the archetypal island character of gentle peat-smoke, vanilla, honey and salt. If I could select just one dram to transport the whisky enthusiast to the islands of Scotland, it would be this one. Rock Oyster will sit proudly alongside our other core regionally themed whiskies and hopefully contributing to Douglas Laing’s continued growth.”

Jameson - Limited edition packaging
The leading Irish whiskey brand of Jameson has unveiled a new limited edition packaging for its core expression.  The packaging, entitled Good Workers, Great Whiskey, will be available in selected world markets and is the first of a planned series of annually released special packages.  The packaging shows an illustration of the key parts of the whiskey making process and also depicts the iconic Jameson 'barrel man' logo.

Daniel Lundberg, the Global Brand Director for Jameson, comments: "Jameson represents the benchmark for quality and consistency in the Irish whiskey category; a vision laid down by John Jameson and realised today by the hard work, dedication and passion of the workers at Midleton distillery. The Good Workers, Great Whiskey limited edition carton follows suit by marrying together the stories of our distillery workers and production techniques through a modern, contemporary design."