Day 8 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
Posted on December 8, 2025
by EvanWhat is this? Two KWM Casks in a row in the 2025 KWM This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar tastings series? It must be Christmas!
Well, we are not quite there yet, but we are already in a giving mood. Say hello to the Millstone 2016 KWM Oloroso Cask from the Zuidam/Millstone in the Netherlands.
This is one of the younger bottlings of Millstone whisky that we have featured in one of our annual whisky calendars in a while: We have featured both Rye and Single Malt bottlings of Millstone past KWM Whisky Advent Calendars, including:
Millstone Oloroso Sherry Single Malt on Day 7 of the KWM 2017 Whisky Calendar
Millstone Peated PX Cask on Day 18 of the KWM 2019 Whisky Calendar
Millstone Rye KWM Cask on Day 1 of our KWM 2020 Whisky Calendar
This bottle was a bit controversial. A rye whisky on day 1 of the whisky calendar?!? Scandalous! We do like to set the tone and do something different on Day 1 for most of our Whisky Advent Calendars, though.
Millstone 9 Year Old Single Grain Whisky on Day 19 of our KWM 2022 Whisky Calendar
That Boutique-y Whisky Company's Millstone 25-Year-Old on Day 4 of our KWM 2023 Whisky Calendar UBER EDITION
In my not so humble opinion, this was a fantastic whisky
An official Millstone 25 Year Oloroso Canada Cask on Day 9 of our KWM 2024 This Is Not An Advent Calendar
As you can see, we are big fans of the Zuidam Distillery and their Millstone Whisky. This KWM Cask marks the seventh whisky from the distillery to be featured in one of our Advents. I believe that is more Dutch whisky than Canadian or American Whisky we have featured in KWM Advent Calendars so far.
The Zuidam Distillery was founded in 1975 in Baarle-Nassau, in and around the very quirky border that the Netherlands part of the city shares with Baarle-Hertog - the name of the Belgian part of the city.
See the picture to the left for the city map, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
The Distillery's founder, Fred van Zuidam, had accumulated two decades of previous experience in spirits production before deciding to make a go of it on his own. Under his care, the distillery started by making a line of premium liqueurs using natural ingredients, from grain to fruit to herbs and spices used. This methodology continues to this day, as Zuidam spirits are made with no artificial colouring or flavouring. This goes for all of their products, be it their Cassis Liqueur (which is delicious by the way), Apple Flavoured Gin, Dutch Courage Old Tom Gin, Premium Genever, or Single Malt Whiskies and Rye Whiskies. Millstone whiskies, and beyond that with the Zuidam line of spirits and liqueurs are numerous, so they can be hard to keep track of.
Zuidam's fir...
Day 7 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
Posted on December 7, 2025
by Evan
Today I will attempt to sell you on a bottle of this KWM Cask. Because I absolutely love it.
Today, Teaninich Distillery is, quietly, the seventh largest Single Malt Whisky distillery in Scotland when it comes to annual production. It is also the third largest owned by spirits megacorp Diageo, with only the Roseisle and Glen Ord Distilleries producing slightly more.
The name Teaninich apparently originates from the Gaelic term ‘taigh an aonaich’, which translates to ‘house on the hill’. It is correctly pronounced ‘tee – nin – ick’ from what I can find. I appreciate the name also containing NIN in there, a reference to one of my longstanding favourite bands. www.nin.com
What is the term? Right: There’s more than one way to skin a cat. This term can be used for fermentation and distillation, and Teaninich definitely goes about peeling that feline in a different manner than most other Scottish distilleries. Two tools that Teaninich uses that aren’t seen in many other distilleries are the hammer mill and the mash filter. These to apparatus replace the more often seen and used roller mill and mash tun.
Operations-wise – a roller mill is used in most distilleries to grind or shear the grain into smaller particles of relatively uniform size. that are then steeped in water and allowed to ferment, creating a distilleries beer over a period of 2 to 3 days on average. The hammer mill used to pound or hammer the malt/grain into submission – or a powder/flour.
The use of a hammer mill instead of a malt mill allows for higher efficiency for a large-scale production like Teaninich. It creates a very fine, flour like grist, as opposed to the more inconsistent and course grist that is typically made by roller mills. The small particle size of the resulting flour/grist can be steeped in water and fermented more effectively as well, as the sugars are more easily gotten to and converted to alcohol during fermentation.
The downside is that this fine flower would create a heavy sediment and often block or gum up the works of a fermentation tank. That is where the mash filter comes into play. The mash filter does exactly what the name suggests – it provides a barrier (actually a large amount of barriers in this case) to block and filter out even the smallest particles from the liquid mash. It is like using a series of large to small sieves to filter particles out of flour. The result is a relatively clear wort, or distiller’s beer, that is then distilled and made into new make spirit.
A great video by whisky.de/whisky.com on Teaninich Distillery
The distillery is a quite different than most others in Scotland, thanks to its use of hammer mill and mash filter.
Thanks to the hammer mill and mash filter...
Day 6 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
Posted on December 6, 2025
by Evan
Okay, for this blog, I solemnly promise: I will not reference Pernod Ricard. Seriously. There is no reason to turn this entirely blog into a one company love fest. I even mentioned them yesterday with Ardnahoe – a distillery they have nothing to do with as far as I am aware. How pathetic is that? Let’s set aside all of this Pernod Ricard talk for at least a little while. Instead, let’s talk about this Single Grain whisky!
This cool looking bottle with a picture of a medieval knight done up in a stained-glass on the label comes from The Whisky Trail. The Whisky Trail is a line owned by distiller and indie bottler Elixir Distillers, who also bottle the Single Malts of Scotland line as well as Port Askaig, Elements of Islay, and more. I am not sure how long Elixir had this specific cask of Strathclyde in its inventory, or who the purchased it from originally, but it was distilled in 1987 and bottled at a respectable 35 years of age and 46% ABV.
Strathclyde Distillery itself resides in Glasgow. It was founded in , and is owned by Chivas Brothers, whose parent company is Pernod Ric...
Well, shit.
So much for that promise. I am not sure how this year’s Advent Calendar has ended up so influenced by this company, but I should stop pretending to be surprised by it now, right? Pernod Ricard is the second l second-largest spirits company in the world, so it is difficult to dodge. The only company more difficult to ignore when it comes to Scotch Whisky especially is Diageo, whom are responsible for between one quarter and one third of the annual single malt whisky production in Scotland. Pernod Ricard only produces a miniscule 15% or so annually itself. However, it has been at least indirectly involved in the creation of four of the 6 drams we have featured thus far in the 2025 KWM Still Not An Advent Calendar Tasting Series – including this Strathclyde.
We might as well give in to the inevitable and see how Strathclyde became a Pernod Ricard owned venture at this point. Shall we?
Strathclyde Distillery was founded in 1927 by original owner Seager Evans and Co. The company did not originally build the distillery specifically to produce for single grain whisky for blending, instead focusing on neutral grain spirit production. Whisky production did not start in earnest until 1936, when Seager Evans acquired the Long John Whisky Blended Scotch Whisky brand. Like a few other Scottish grain distilleries operating in the mid-1900s, Strathclyde briefly had pot stills installed on site and produced Single Malt Whisky as well, under the name Kinclaith. The pot stills only ran between 1958 and 1975, and in 1977 single malt production was demolished, never to return.
Strathclyde moved to larger and larger hands as the whisky industry went through its merger and acquisitions phase in...
Day 5 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
Posted on December 7, 2025
The recap tasting video for Days and Doors 1 thru 5 is up on YouTube and can be found here.by Evan
Okay – hands up if you are sick of me mentioning Pernod Ricard in these blog posts? The French spirits company has played a role in shaping the brands and whisky we have talked about over the past three days for KWM’s 2025 Still Not An Advent Whisky Tastings. That changes for Day Five! As far as I can tell, Pernod Ricard has had nothing to do with the creation of the Ardnahoe Infinite Loch.
This is the second year in a row we are featuring Ardnahoe Distillery in our KWM Advent Whisky tastings. On Day 4 of the 2024 KWM This Is Not An Advent Calendar, we tasted the distillery’s 5 Year Old Inaugural Release.
Ardnahoe is the youngest of 10 currently operating distilleries on Islay to have released whisky. Here are the currently running and upcoming Islay Distilleries as of December 2025, listed based on founding date:
Bowmore — 1779
Ardbeg — 1815
Lagavulin — 1816
Laphroaig — 1820
Caol Ila – 1846
Bunnahabhain — 1880
Bruichladdich — 1881
Kilchoman — 2005
Ardnahoe — 2019
Port Ellen – 1825 / 2024
Portintruan – 2026 ish?
Laggan Bay – 2026 ish?
Gartbreck – 2027 ish?
Owning and operating a distillery on Islay so hot right now, as the cool kids would say. The only place in Scotland that would be sexier for having one is probably Campbeltown. Because who doesn’t love the idea of operating a distillery where you are so remote the costs go up significantly due to having to ship your equipment and malt from far away? It is even harder to distill on Islay now, thanks to Diageo seemingly keeping all of Port Ellen’s malt production to themselves. Maybe that will change now that the Scotch Whisky market seems to be in a downturn.
Regardless of economics, Ardnahoe is no longer the new kid on the block and will soon look as experienced as Kilchoman Distillery relative to newcomers Port Ellen (revivied), Portintruan, Laggan Bay, and Gartbreck.
Spirits behemoth Diageo is behind Port Ellen revival. The Distillery was shuttered in 1983 and has been revived completely rebuilt. Diageo and is already selling casks collectors and has dollar signs (or British Pound Sterling signs?) in its eyes at the prospect of gouging whisky geeks everywhere when it eventually releases new Port Ellen Single Malt once more.
Portintruan was supposed to have opened by now, but hit a stumbling block last year when the company building it went into receivership.
Laggan Bay is being jointly planned by a group called the Islay Boys and Ian MacLeod Distillers. Ian Macleod are the owners of Glengoyne and Tamdhu, as well as...
Day 4 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
Posted on December 7, 2025
The recap tasting video for Days and Doors 1 thru 5 is up on YouTube and can be found here.by Evan
Canadian Club Whisky Is one of the best known and best-selling Canadian Whisky brands around. Only Crown Royal is known more and sold more world-wide. It is also the oldest Canadian Whisky brand in use today. It was first launched by Hiram Walker in 1882 as ‘Club Whisky’, with the ‘Canadian’ part of the name amended in 1888.
Historically, Canadian Club has always been linked with the Hiram Walker Distillery of Windsor, Ontario. However, the Canadian Club brand and the Hiram Walker Distillery have been owned by separate companies for two decades now. In 2005, French company Pernod Ricard acquired Allied Domecq, owners of The Hiram Walker Distillery and the Canadian Club Brand. This was also when and how Pernod Ricard acquired Scapa distillery, which we talked about yesterday, along with the Ballentine’s whisky Brand as well as the Miltonduff, Glenburgie and Tormore distilleries.
Fat and bloated with indigestion and excess brands from the acquisition, Pernod Ricard had to parcel and sell off some of the excess brands and distilleries to avoid competition regulation issues.
One of the brands Pernod Ricard parted ways was Canadian Club Whisky; choosing to focus on Wiser's as the flagship Canadian Whisky brand of the distillery.
The buyer of Canadian Club Whisky was called Fortune Brands. Fortune Brands split off its liquor division in 2011, which was dubbed Beam Inc. As in Jim Beam. Beam Inc was acquired by the Japanese company Suntory Holdings in 2014 for a cool 16 Billion dollars. The company that owns Canadian Club is now called Suntory Global Spirits. The only distillery owned by Suntory Global in Canada is Alberta Distillers, right here in Calgary, Alberta.
Canadian Club whisky has some... difficulty when it comes to being honest about how and where the whisky is made - at least if you go by what is shown on the canadianclub.com website.
Case in point: check out this image from their website below, which shows an impressive row of copper pot stills.
The problem is: I am pretty damn certain that those stills have absolutely nothing to do with Canadian Club Whisky.
From what I can tell, the still house in that photo does not even reside in Canada. My best guess from a bit of Google searching is that is a picture taken of the interior of Ardmore Distillery's still house in Kennethmont, Scotland. Ardmore Distillery is owned by Suntory Global, who also own the Canadian Club Whisky brand.
That is where the Ardmore and Canadian Club connection ends as far as I can tell. I doubt the Scottish Ardmore Distillery is producing whisky for Canadian Club, though. So what gives?
This is only the second time ...
Recent Posts
- Day 8 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
- Day 7 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
- Day 6 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
- Day 5 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
- Day 4 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
- Day 3 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
- Day 2 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
- Day 1 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
- A list of ALL KWM Whisky Calendar Bottles & Posts - Part Two
- A list of ALL KWM Whisky Calendar Bottles & Posts - Part One