I was recently in Paris for the launch of Aberlour’s new 21 and 25 Year Old whiskies, the oldest expressions in its permanent collection. Tasting them together revealed two quite different characters, shaped by more than two decades of maturation and the individual casks selected for each release. Both had plenty to offer, but I was particularly drawn to the perfume and fruit of the 21 Year Old.
Havana Club Unión: Cuba Comes to Dinner in Paris
Havana Club’s latest release, Icónica Unión, completes its collection of six prestige rums. Drawing on reserves maintained by successive generations of rum masters, it brings together the producer’s approach to blending and ageing in a rum intended to accompany fine food. I travelled to Paris for the launch, where I had the opportunity to taste it alongside one of Havana Club’s Maestros del Ron Cubano.
One of the things I enjoy most about writing Drinks Diaries is that there really are no boundaries to what might end up in my glass. This time we travel from the vineyards of West Sussex to the shores of Lake Geneva, through Tuscany, Austria, Portugal, and the far south of Italy, before heading north to Islay and Skye. There are familiar grapes in unfamiliar places, including a Tuscan white from a region better known for Sangiovese, alongside Chasselas from Switzerland, a country whose wines we rarely get the opportunity to drink in the UK.
Anyone who has made the pilgrimage to Campbeltown knows the journey demands commitment. Stepping off the Twin Otter, a rugged propeller plane with a single seat on either side of the aisle and not an overhead locker in sight, onto that exposed coastal tarmac feels like crossing into a different era.
High on the South Downs, Weyborne Estate looks across the Sussex countryside from slopes that rise towards a thousand feet above sea level. Its history reaches back to around 1600, when an early ironmaster used local ore to forge axes and spikes. By the mid seventeenth century, the estate was held by William Yaldwin, a Parliamentarian who hosted Oliver Cromwell during the Civil War.
Loch Lomond possesses a distinct aura that few bodies of water can match. As the largest expanse of fresh water in Great Britain, it straddles the Highland Boundary Fault, splitting the calm pastoral Lowlands from the rugged wilderness of the north. Its eastern shore belongs to the raw solitude of the West Highland Way, while the western banks harbour quiet enclaves of extraordinary wealth and discretion, most notably the ultra exclusive Loch Lomond Golf Club, where billionaires and world leaders arrive by boat or helicopter, shielded behind gated lochside paths.
Anyone who has spent time along the River Spey knows that its surface can be wonderfully deceitful. It slides through the Scottish hills with an easy, polished grace, yet beneath that mirror lies a muscular undertow.
It is an apt metaphor for the latest arrival from House of Hazelwood: Calm Waters 1992, a vintage blended malt.
Whisky is an industry often defined by its reverence for tradition. Yet true innovation frequently occurs when someone looks at an established practice from an entirely different angle. For independent bottler Duncan Taylor Scotch Whisky, that angle is approximately one eighth the size of a standard sherry butt.
The Art of the Father’s Day Dram: Why Bushmills is the Ultimate Gift for the Discerning Parent
There is something wonderfully liberating about drinking pink wine without pretending it has to justify itself. Rosé has spent decades being underestimated, lightly dismissed as a sugary summer seasonal or a simple patio sipper. Yet, away from the clichés, the category has quietly become one of the most dynamic corners of modern viticulture.
