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Day 3 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar

Posted on December 3, 2025

by Evan

Day 3 is here for our KWM 2025 Still Not An Advent Calendar tasting series. For this very special Day 3, we are breaking new ground. Brace yourselves, for this marks the first time in this year’s Advent tastings where we will NOT be tasting whisky from a distillery whose name starts with Glen. That’s right, folks, we are changing things up! Today’s whisky comes from independent bottler Gordon & MacPhail. Say hello to the G&M Connoisseurs Choice Scapa 2000 Canada Cask.

If my records are correct, this Is the first time that Scapa Distillery has been featured in a KWM Whisky Advent Calendar. A bit surprising that it hasn’t been used in any of our 12 calendars before this one, but there are not exactly a bunch of Scapa bottlings around. There are a few official bottles, but indie bottlings of Scapa are about as rare as hen’s teeth. Gordon & MacPhail is the only bottler to put out Scapa that comes to mind.

Scapa is not a large distillery, and sadly, it does not get the focus and attention it perhaps should by its parent company. Whisky from Scapa is well respected and sought after by many whisky geeks. There just isn’t a lot of it around.

The Distillery was founded in 1885. Production from opening remained fairly consistent until around 1919, when it was damaged in a fire. Sounds like just about every other centuries-old distillery so far, right?

Lack of money forced the ownership of Scapa into liquidation in 1934 and production was halted until it was purchased in 1936 by the Bloch Brothers. That is the Bloch Brothers company that resided at 138 Renfield Street in Glasgow, which also owned the Glen Scotia and Glengyle distilleries in Campbeltown at the time. Not to be confused with the Bloch Brothers in Ohio who were famous for their chewing tobacco at around the same time. Those Bloch Brothers would be discussed in an entirely different type of Advent Calendar.

Also, the Glengyle Distillery referred to is the old Glengyle distillery, which shut down permanently in 2014. The current Glengyle Distillery came to being in 2004 and produces the Kilkerran Single Malt Scotch. But I digress.

Back to Scapa. Thanks to the 20+ year whisky downturn that started in the 1980s, Scapa ended up at a point was barely limping along operationally. By 1994, the distillery was only used occasionally for spirit runs, and that was only thanks to staff from the nearby Highland Park distillery being contracted to do so. The Scapa 14 Year was released in 2004 – marking the first time a distillery bottling was given a marketing push. A sizeable renovation of the distillery took place the same year. In 2005, Chivas Brothers/Pernod Ricard became the owners of Scapa when they acquired Allied Domecq. A visitor’s centre was opened in 2015.

Although it is not a large...

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Day 2 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar

Posted on December 2, 2025

by Evan

We are back on the blog for Day 2 of Kensington Wine Market’s 2025 Still Not An Advent Calendar tastings. Today, we will be diving into the GlenAllachie 15 Year Old.

One could argue that this isn’t a tremendous shift in style versus the SMWS Glenfarclas we just tasted on Day One. Perhaps that is a fair assessment. Both that bottle and this GlenAllachie 15 Year are sherry-driven drams from distilleries that have a heavy focus on the use of sherry casks for maturing their whisky. Also, they both start with Glen and reside in the Speyside region of Scotland. What are the odds!?! We will get to tasting this dram in a bit to see if it is a veritable clone of Day One’s dram. My guess is that it won’t be, but who knows at this point? Let’s talk about GlenAllachie before we find out.

Compared to Glenfarclas, the GlenAllachie Distillery is quite young. This plucky newcomer wasn’t even around when the Pattison Whisky Crisis nearly made Glenfarclas fold. Glenallachie Distillery was founded only last century, in 1967, by a subsidiary of the Scottish & Newcastle Company. The distillery started producing spirit in 1968 and operated for nearly two decades until it was purchased and mothballed by Invergordon Distillers in 1985. The distillery was sold to Campbell Distillers in 1989 and restarted production. Campbell Distillers eventually became part of the company now known as Pernod Ricard. Under Pernod Ricard’s slash Chivas Brothers' wing, Glenallachie’s output was used almost entirely for blending, but that would change significantly in 2017.

8 years ago, on October 2nd of 2017, a group headed by Billy Walker. His first order of business? To capitalize the A in GlenAllachie in a similar move to what he pulled off previously at the BenRiach and GlenDronach distilleries. It must be some sort of fetishistic impulse. The man must be stopped! The next move in Billy’s playbook, of course, was to improve the whisky creation and maturation regime at the distillery and focus on getting the best sherry casks possible to mature GlenAllachie’s whisky in.

A lot of time was spent carefully checking the distillery’s stock of maturing whisky inventory and re-racking a good deal of it in newer or better casks. This has been paying off tremendously over the near decade of Billy Walker & co’s stewardship of the distillery and launching of GlenAllachie as a serious Single Malt Scotch Whisky brand.

GlenAllachie Distillery is located Aberlour, Scotland. It is only about a 7-minute drive North and East from Glenfarclas Distillery, along the A95. Its closest neighbours include Aberlour Distillery itself, which is just another few minutes drive North and East on the A95. Being in the heart of Speyside means there are plenty of other distilleries nearby as well. Head off for a jaunt in...

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Day 1 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar

Posted on December 1, 2025

by Evan

Welcome to Day One in our KWM Still Not a Whisky Advent Tasting journey for 2025!

If you are like me, you have been anxiously waiting for December and this year’s round of Advent tastings since about December 27th of last year.

I could go off on a spiel about how much I missed all of you and these little clear bottles and doing these blog posts and the virtual tastings, but that’s a given. So! Let’s get right down to it and talk about our first of 25 whiskies in for this year’s marathon!

So, crack open that first door on your calendar tasting series, pull out that shrinkflation-induced scale model of a Glencairn Whisky glass and that first sample.

This year, we are starting at a place we have often ended on in past Whisky Advent tastings – with a bottle from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Say hello to SMWS 1.300 – MISTLETOE AND WHISKY.

If you are not yet familiar with the Scotch Malt Whisky Society and what they do, here is a brief introduction:

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society is the world's largest whisky club, and also an independent bottler. As a club, it has close to 40,000 members all over the world. It has branches in more than 20 different countries, including right here in Canada. It bottles as broad a range of single cask, single malt Scotch whiskies as any other firm - if not more - and it doesn't stop there. It has also bottled Japanese whiskies, Bourbon, Rye, Grain whisky, Cognac, Armagnac, Rum, and Gin. Whether it is a whisky or another spirit, the Society always bottles the spirit from a single cask, straight from the cask, Unfiltered. Undiluted. Unrivalled.

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society was officially founded back in 1983. Membership to the SMWS is easy and gives you exclusive access to the widest selection of single cask single malt whiskies anywhere in the world. The Canada Chapter of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society celebrated its 10th birthday in October of 2021. Only Scotch Malt Whisky Society members can buy our exclusive single cask single malt whiskies, but anyone can purchase a sample kit for one of the monthly Outturn Tastings we hold online. We're confident once you've had a taste you will want to join the club. For more information on the SMWS and SMWS Canada, you can visit their web page at www.smws.ca.

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society does not put the name of the distillery directly on the bottle or in the tasting notes. Instead, everything is codified. That brings us to the bottle for today. Check out the label, and you will find it says SOCIETY CASK NO. 1.300. What the heck do those numbers mean? The first set of numbers before the decimal (the 63) means that this is from the 63rd distillery ever bottled by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society since its inception. The first distill...

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A list of ALL KWM Whisky Calendar Bottles & Posts - Part Two

Posted on July 23, 2025

by Evan

This is Part Two of my post on past KWM Whisky Calendars, and covers the 2019 KWM Whisky Calendar thru all the way back to its beginnings with the first one Kensington Wine Market produced itself, back in 2014. Read on below for the lineup and blog post for each calendar!

Click here for part 1, which lists KWM Whisky Calendars from 2020 to 2024

KWM 2019 Whisky Calendar

All posts for this whisky calendar written by Evan

Day 1 - Inchmurrin 18 Year
Day 2 - Glenfarclas 15 Year
Day 3 - Kilchoman 2011 KWM Cask 770
Day 4 - Buffalo Trace Bourbon
Day 5 - The Single Malts of Scotland Ben Nevis 1996 KWM Cask
Day 6 - The Epicurean Lowland Blended Malt
Day 7 - Inchmoan 12 Year
Day 8 - Robert Burns Single Malt
Day 9 - MacNair's Lum Reek 12 Year
Day 10 - Edradour 10 Year
Day 11 - Eau Claire Single Malt Whisky - Release 2
Day 12 - Compass Box Spice Tree
Day 13 - Armorik Double Maturation
Day 14 - Ardbeg An Oa
Day 15 - Loch Lomond 18 Year
Day 16 - Knob Creek Small Batch Bourbon
Day 17 - Shelter Point Smoke Point Single Malt Whisky
Day 18 - Millstone Peated PX Cask
Day 19 - Rock Island Blended Malt Scotch Whisky
Day 20 - Ballechin 10 year Old
Day 21 - Timorous Beastie Highland Blended Malt Scotch
Day 22 - Glen Scotia Victoriana
Day 23 - Glenfarclas 21 Year Old
Day 24 - Kilchoman Alberta Single Cask Madeira Finish
Day 25 - Scotch Malt Whisky Society 66.155 - BIG ON BACON

KWM 2018 Whisky Calendar

All posts in this whisky calendar written by Andrew or Evan - mostly Andrew

Day 1 - Super Nikka (written by Andrew)
Day 2 - Cadenhead Linkwood 2006 KWM Cask (written by Andrew)
Day 3 - Compass Box The Peat Monster (written by Andrew)
Day 4 - Old Malt Cask Mortlach 11 Year KWM Cask (written by Andrew)
Day 5 - Cadenhead Tomintoul-Glenlivet 12 Year (written by Andrew)
Day 6 - Shelter Point Single Malt KWM Cask (written by Andrew)
Day 7 - Arran 10 Year (written by Andrew)
Day 8 - Kilkerran Visitor Center Bottling (written by Andrew)
Day 9 - Cadenhead Glen Spey 2001 (written by Andrew)
Day 10 - Black Mountain Notes Fumees (A French whisky) (written by Evan)
Day 11 - Wolfburn Morven (written by Evan)
...

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A list of ALL KWM Whisky Calendar Bottles & Posts - Part One

Posted on July 23, 2025

by Evan

Continued in Part Two. Go to that post to see all bottles and posts from the 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, AND 2014 KWM Whisky Calendars!

Let's start with a bit of honesty: I made this list as much for me as I did for anybody else. I want it for future reference: it should allow me to easily find each blog post (strictly for research, not for copying. I swear!). It is also a guide showing which bottles we have featured in the past.

Plus, I wanted to geek out a bit! To that end, here are a few stats:

Total KWM Whisky Calendars made as of January 2025: 12
Total number of bottles featured in KWM Whisky Calendars from 2014 to 2024: 305*

Each KWM Whisky Advent Calendar has featured 25 bottles. Plus, we did an extra Whisky Calendar in 2023: The KWM Whisky Calendar UBER EDITION.

* Except for the first KWM Whisky Advent Calendar in 2014 had no 25th bottle. It was limited to 24 bottles.

* Each 2015 KWM Whisky Advent Calendar featured 1 of 6 different SMWS bottles.

Total number of KWM Casks featured: 27?
Total number of Kilchoman bottles featured: 10?
Total number of Scotch Malt Whisky Society bottlings featured: 14?
Total number of Gordon & MacPhail bottlings featured: 14?
Total number of Bourbon Whiskeys inflicted on Scotch Whisky enthusiasts: 9
Total number of Rye Whiskys inflicted on Scotch Whisky enthusiasts: 2
Total number of blog posts which talked about the bottle and distillery: 280

Yeah, KWM missed writing about 25 bottles because no blog posts were made for the 2014 KWM Whisky Advent Calendar. The blog post tradition started with the 2015 KWM Whisky Advent Calendar.

Andrew wrote each and every blog post up to the 2017 KWM Whisky Calendar, where Evan wrote a few to pitch in. Evan did a few more for the 2018 edition.
Evan zealously took over all blog posting duties with the 2019 KWM Whisky Advent Calendar, and has yet to relinquish this “honour” back to Andrew or anybody else.

This can mostly be blamed on Evan being full of himself and harbouring this absurd notion that people actually care about what he has to say.

Total number of Whisky Calendar blog posts Evan has written: 186 (feel free to count them and tell me if I am wrong!)
Total number of Whisky Calendar blog posts Andrew has written: 94 (see above!)
We started hosting recap tastings each five days during the bad-old-days of COVID-19, for the 2020 KWM Whisky Advent Calendar.

We have continued doing the 5-day recap tastings ever since. Most of these recap tasting videos have been posted...

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