Day 20 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
Posted on December 22, 2025
by Evan
Ahh, Ardmore – the Scottish Distillery that may or may not be responsible for making Canadian Club Whisky (spoiler: It isn’t – but don’t tell the marketing arm of Suntory Global).
Yes, that is Ardmore's still house that shows on the Canadian Club Whisky's official website.
The "Since 1858" is also kind of funny and misleading, as Ardmore Distillery was not founded until 1898.
It seems like only yesterday I went on a rant regarding companies not releasing interesting bottlings from their own distilleries, and how many of us rely on independent bottlers to put out bottlings that excite us. Perhaps I should have saved that rant for today?
Beam Suntory seems to treat Ardmore as the red-headed stepchild in its Scotch Whisky portfolio. When it comes to profile and releases, Bowmore and Laphroaig get plenty of attention, being the Islay darlings that they are. Auchentoshan in the Lowlands gets a similarly prolific treatment. Even Glen Garioch gets more single malt releases and attention, and that is saying something!
Every giant spirits company is guilty of this. Far, far more Blended Scotch than Single Malt Scotch worldwide. They have their distilleries that they shine a spotlight on, and then they have their production workhorses that are crucial for their blends and do not need marketing and releases to showcase what they do.
Ardmore Distillery was founded in 1898, and since the beginning, its focus has been on peated whisky production. The Highland distillery was purpose-built to provide whisky for blending, as pretty much all distilleries were at the time. However, with Ardmore that hasn't changed much - even today just about all of Ardmore's production is still being used for blending, trading stock, or selling. Ardmore features prominently in the Teacher’s Highland Cream blended Scotch Whisky, as it has since its inception.
Only a small portion of the distillery’s Single Malt Scotch lands in official bottles released by Ardmore and its parent company Beam Suntory, and the only official bottle that makes its way to Alberta is the Ardmore Legacy, which we featured in a few years back in the 2020 edition of the KWM Whisky Calendar. The 40% ABV, no age statement Ardmore Legacy is, to put it politely, a bland, boring and terrible representation of what this distillery is capable of.
A note on the last paragraph: I am not above plagiarism – IF I am plagiarizing myself. I originally wrote that for our 2023 Whisky Calendar. I keep hoping that Suntory will find a reason to improve the quality of and increase the proliferation of official Ardmore bottlings. Sadly, the Ardmore Legacy has been pretty much the only official Ardmore in Alberta for what – a decade now? Maybe more?
Regardless,...
Day 19 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
Posted on December 22, 2025
by Evan
We are in the midst of tough times in the whisky economy as I write this. Sales have flat lined and even dropped over the past few years, and it has left the entire industry scrambling to adjust. Some have adjusted better than others, but quite a few brands and companies have yet to take slowing sales into account and seem to be stuck pricing their offerings like we are all still fresh out of quarantine and thirsty for anything we can get our hands on.
Another thing that has happened is companies stretching their stock out or special releases and casks finishes. These special bottles often don’t end up feeling so special, thanks to being released in an insanely diluted fashion to the bare minimum 40% ABV while at the same time demanding a high price to purchase that leaves one perplexed.
Just as bad is the dumping of excess young whisky stock into an assortment of ex wine and ex fortified wine casks for a dubious amount of time to make that typically bland 40% ABV release sexy. How about releasing it at 46% or 50% or more? That would actually be sexy and enticing.
Certain companies seem to feel like they didn’t get a chance to gouge customers enough during the lengthy but now finished whisky boom. So what do they do? They attempt to correct course and make up for this egregious loss by now releasing too many too new, half-baked bottlings at a too-high price.
Okay, that is enough ranting for now.
In a completely unrelated note, let’s talk about Tomintoul Distillery.
The amount of available bottlings has exploded in the past few years, as the core range of the Gentle Dram has been surrounded by special releases, cask finishes, and others of the like. Most of these have been bottled at 40% ABV. The few that haven’t command a strangely selected price that puts it at the range – and sometimes beyond said range – of certain luxury branded single malts.
Guess what? Much of those luxury brand whisky releases are collecting dust on shelves. They aren’t the license to print money that they used to be. So, what do you think is happening to expensive releases from brands that don’t have the same cache to them? Hmm…
Shoot, I went off topic again. Lets get back to Tomintoul Distillery and their owners – Angus Dundee.
Angus Dundee Distillers has been around for over 70 Years, and owns Tomintoul Distillery as well as Glencadam Distillery. The company was established in 1950 by a gentleman named Terry Hillman. Before going off to found his own company, Terry was an executive at Burn Stewart
Terry Hillman was succeeded by his children Aaron and Tania, whom remain in control of Angus Dundee today.
For the first 50 years of i...
Day 18 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
Posted on December 18, 2025
by Evan
Move over, Tim Hortons – there is a new Double Double in town!
If you name your Blended Scotch “Double Double”, it is pretty apparent that you are trying to corner the Canadian market. That is exactly what Dewar’s has done with this Blended Scotch Whisky range. Featuring 21, 27, and 32 year old versions, all available in cute little 375ml bottles with an unfortunately silly amount of extra packaging around them, the Double Double series has been quite popular over the past few years.
We don’t focus on Blended Scotch as much as the rest of the world seems to. You know, beyond being big fans of Compass Box, and anything that Walter is deems worth promoting. However, the Dewar's brand has been going through a bit of a renaissance with this Double Double lineup and a few other releases, and they have one of the most celebrated Master Blenders in charge of what they do.
Stephanie MacLeod is the woman behind the Dewar’s line of Blended Scotch Whisky. She has been a Master Blender with Dewar’s and parent company Bacardi since 2006. She was awarded the International Whisky Competition’s Master Blender of the Year Award in 2019, making her the first female Master Blender to do so.
Then she won it again in 2020.
And 2021, 2022, 2023, and for the sixth consecutive year in 2024. They were probably looking at changing its name to the Stephanie MacLeod Award at this point. Just this year, the IWC finally honoured somebody else with the Master Blender Of The Year award. It was presented to the also highly respected Drew Mayville of Sazerac/Buffalo Trace fame this time around.
Good to see that the IWC isn’t sexist, at least.
The great Stephanie MacLeod
Beyond her title of Director of Blending at Bacardi/Dewar’s, Stephanie is also Malt Master for the company’s five Single Malt Scotch distilleries. These are Aberfeldy, Aultmore, Craigellachie, Royal Brackla and Macduff (which is bottled as The Deveron).
Dewar’s was established by John Dewar in 1846. It started, essentially, as a liquor store. John sold wine and spirits at the shop with his surname on it, which resided in Perth, Scotland. Eventually, he started blending his own whiskies and selling them at the store. This was something many grocers did at the time, procuring casks and then creating their own house blends that they sold at their establishments. The Johnnie Walker brand’s own humble beginnings started much the same way.
It was John Dewar’s sons that really established and cemented the brand, though. John Dewar Sr. passed away in 1880, but the company continued with two of his sons at the helm. John Alexander Dewar – or John Dewar Jr. – mostly stayed in the UK, in charge of the stock an...
Day 17 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
Posted on December 18, 2025
by Evan
Daftmill represents a new generation of Lowland Malt distilleries. In the year 2000, there were only two Single Malt producing operations left in the region: Auchentoshan, and Glenkinchie. Bladnoch was still around, but not really in production at the time. Rosebank had fallen during the 1980s whisky glut. So had Littlemill, which had much of its stills and copper stolen in the 1990s. St. Magdalene/Linlithgow closed in 1983 as well.
There had been more grain distilleries than malt distilleries operating in the Lowlands during this time as well. The largest distillery in the UK and perhaps Europe is Cameronbridge (Johnnie Walker, J&B, Haig Club) in Fife. Girvan is owned by William Grant & Sons (Grant’s, Famous Grouse) and operates in South Ayrshire. Strathclyde (Chivas Regal, Ballantines) is in Glasgow. And North British is in Edinburgh.
Times have changed over the last two decades for the Lowlands though. Here is a list of operating Lowland Distilleries that have opened this millennium:
Daftmill – 2005
Ailsa Bay – 2007
Eden Mill – 2012
Kingsbarns – 2014
Glasgow Distillery (bet you can’t guess where these guys are located) – 2015
Inchdairnie – 2015
Stirling – 2015 (though the Stirling Distillery did not produce their first new make spirit to eventually become whisky until 2024)
Aberargie - 2017
Annandale – 2017
Clydeside – 2017
Galloway – 2025 (Formerly known as Crafty Distillery, which was founded in 2014. Actor/Sexy Beast Sam Heughan - that dreamy dude from the Outlander TV Series - now has a hand in this operation. So you know it has to be promising. Right, Sassenach?)
Lindores Abbey - 2017
Borders – 2018
Lochlea – 2018
Lagg – 2019 (on the Isle of Arran – technically in the Lowlands)
Holyrood – 2019
Bonnington – 2020 (From the producer of Crabbie's Ginger Beer)
Falkirk – 2020
Jackton – 2020
Rosebank (revived and rebuilt) – 2023
Blackness Bay – 2024
Kythe - 2025 (Founded by three serious whisky geeks, including Angus MacRaild)
Lengthy, isn’t it? There may be a few news ones missing despite my attempt at being comprehensive.
As you can see, Daftmill was the first single malt distillery to open in the region this century. Founded and opened in 2005 by brothers Francis and Ian Cuthbert, Daftmill is about as close as you can find to a traditional farm distillery operated in modern times. It is extremely small production. Seriously – it makes Springbank seem like a gargantuan whisky making factory in comparison. The Daftmill distillery only operates when the Daftmill farm itself does not ...
Day 16 - KWM 2025 This Is Still Not An Advent Calendar
Posted on December 17, 2025
by Evan
There are so many distilleries in Diageo’s arsenal of whisky production that are not well known. When you are a megacorp that operates 28 malt distilleries in Scotland alone, you can’t really give each one a focus with regular single malt releases and a visitor’s centre. We talked about this with the Diageo owned Teaninich Distillery on day 7 in this year’s calendar, and we are back here again to talk about it today with this Linkwood KWM Cask, which was selected by us and bottled under the Single Malts of Scotland label by Elixir Distillers.
Linkwood Distillery was founded in 1821 by one Peter Brown; the owner of the Linkwood Estate it resided on. The distillery did not officially start production until four years later in 1825. Peter’s son William Brown took over operations in 1868 and built a larger Linkwood distillery that opened in 1873 in the same spot. William died in 1898, at which point the Linkwood Glenlivet company was created and went public on the stock exchange. The distillery was taken over by Scottish Malt Distillers (SMD) in 1933. SMD in turn became part of Distiller’s Company Ltd. (DCL) in 1936.
In 1971, a second distillery was built alongside the first. The second distillery was dubbed Linkwood B. Twinning a distillery is a concept that has been used a few times over the years. A few examples include:
For a while there was both a Glen Grant 1 and a Glen Grant 2. Glen Grant 2 only operated from 1898 to 1902, before reopening under the name Caperdonich Distillery in 1968, closing for the final time in 2002.
Clynelish underwent a similar cloning process in 1968, though the older, smaller distillery had its name changed to Brora in 1969 and then closed in 1983. That close was permanent – at least until the new and revived Brora opened once more opened in 2021.
In Japan, there is both a Chichibu Distillery and a Chichibu Daini (Daini translates to second, or two in english). The first, smaller Chichibu distillery was opened in 2008 by Ichiro Akuto. Chichibu Daini opened in 2019. The long term plan is for the first Chichibu to remain on the craft and experimental release side of things, while Chichibu Daini will eventually offer more consistent and sustainable releases.
While both Linkwood A and B were in operation, the new make from the two would be vatted together before being put into cask for maturation. In 1985, the old Linkwood A was closed, leaving Linkwood B to be the primary Linkwood Distillery. The older Linkwood A was used for production for a few months each year between 1990 and 1996, but then fell completely silent and was eventually demolished in 2012.
From The Single Cask: The Dram Drone At Linkwood Distillery
Linkwood distillery’s whisky has long been revered as a top dressing malt and sought af...
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