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In the picturesque Chianti hills of Tuscany lies Castello di Albola, a historic estate renowned for its exceptional wines and rich heritage. This medieval castle, surrounded by lush vineyards, has been a symbol of winemaking excellence for centuries.
A Journey Through History
King’s Cross has come a long way since the days of greasy spoon cafés and grey station concourses. Now a hub of art, fashion and glossy regeneration - arguably London’s most frenetically modernised postcode - it’s also home to one of London’s most intriguing boutique hotels: The Megaro.
If the French Riviera were a movie, La Croisette would be the opening shot: sweeping, golden, glamourous and impossibly good-looking! This palm-lined promenade in the heart of Cannes stretches seductively along the Mediterranean, flanked by designer boutiques, historic hotels and beach clubs where rosé and champagne are practically on tap!
Whisky is usually a drink of the present. You open it. You pour. You share a moment. You might talk about where it came from, but rarely where it’s going. The House of Hazelwood is inviting us to do something very different: to imagine whisky not for ourselves, but for those we’ll never meet.
Something very exciting is on the horizon - an exceptionally rare bottle of whisky being released by The House of Hazelwood. I’ll be publishing more about it soon, but first, I wanted to provide some background to show just how important the Girvan distillery is to the brand. Girvan is not just a grain distillery - it’s the silent powerhouse behind the remarkable whiskies in the House of Hazelwood collection. As you’ll see in my next article, their latest expression reaches deep into Girvan's past and looks far into the future.
Halfway inland in the very heart of Italy is the provincial city of Bologna, the capital of Emilia-Romagna region. Here it’s possible to experience the real Italian art of living well. For Bologna is called three things: la Dotta (the Learned), for the oldest university in the Western world founded in 1088, transferred from Ravenna’s ancient school of Roman law; la Grassa (the Fat), considered the home of Italian gastronomy with its cuisine of tortellini, lasagne and tagliatelle al ragù and thirdly la Rossa (the Red), for its exquisite terracotta-tiled roofs.
There’s a silence in the mountains that feels fuller than anything you’ll find in the city. Not emptier, not lonelier—just fuller. The kind of silence that contains things: possibility, peace, the crunch of snow under your boots, the clink of a glass just before you take a sip. It’s the kind of silence that makes you slow down, look up, and feel like you’re exactly where you’re meant to be. For me, that was drinking a glass of High West whiskey surrounded by the mountains.
Few distilleries divide opinion quite like Loch Lomond. Often underestimated, sometimes misunderstood, it doesn’t trade on bucolic charm or romantic tales of illicit stills. Instead, it is rooted in industrial ambition and technical ingenuity - qualities that, ironically, have led to some of the most distinct single malts coming out of Scotland today.
