Neighbours... everybody needs good neighbours right… and the world of scotch whisky is full of examples of distilleries that were built on top of each other. If you were to throw a stick whilst on a visit to Speyside you’d probably hit a distillery as this region is absolutely teaming with clusters of neighbouring distilleries, most notably around the towns of Rothes, Keith, Dufftown and Elgin. But, Glen Grant and Caperdonich (which was sadly demolished in 2011), had a special relationship and these two were literally joined by a pipe. Caperdonich was built as part of an expansion phase at...

We talked in last week’s beer blog about the notion of the daily beer, an all but forgotten tradition (IMO) going back to the days when an ale was regarded as one of life’s little necessities. If ever there were a style epitomising this, it is without doubt, the Farmhouse Ale; a low abv beer originally produced by Belgian farmers, using the malts and grains they were growing and which was consumed on a daily basis if there was enough grain to allow. I’m into the self-sustainable efficiency of this and the notion too that beer was looked upon differently...

Quirky white blends are de rigeuer in wine right now but very few are actually made from grapes that are grown together, harvested together and fermented together, as this field blend is. It's an exotic mix of Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris and Muscat, inspired by the great white field blends of Marcel Deiss in the Alsace region of north east France. This wine is the brainchild of Mountford Estate winemaker CP Lin, who suggested making this four grape field blend to the original owners of Mountford Estate, Michael and Buffy Eaton, who planted a portion of their vineyard in these...

Ageing whisky is a complex process that, to be honest, few people fully understand. Distillers use a variety of techniques to try and create a new make that is unique to their distillery but Scotch isn't Scotch until it's spent three years in a cask and It's in the cask that the magic really happens.Once laid down to age, the interaction between the spirit and the wood is a key part of the process with extraction of lignin, vanillin, lactones and tannins from the wood into the spirit but also adsorption of various compounds from the spirit into the wood....

Chimay is one of those beer names with a reputation that precedes it. As one of only 14 abbey breweries worldwide making authentic Trappist beer, it is special by any standard, and its 170 years of brewing history is testament to this.As per most Trappist breweries, there are only a handful of Chimay beers to choose from, spanning relatively high and higher ABVs, but the Goud (or gold) that we are looking at today is under 5%. With the current trend for lagers and lower ABVs, I thought this “old world” approach to a lighter style of beer would make...