Mark Gillespie

Japan’s whiskies have been getting more attention on the world stage. While some “Japanese Whiskies” are rightly winning awards in major competitions, others with the… Read More

By Mark Gillespie February 16, 2021 – Virtually everything whiskey-related has been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, with the lone exception of retail bottle sales.… Read More

By Mark Gillespie February 16, 2021 – It’s been an open secret among whisky connoisseurs for years that not all whiskies labeled as “Japanese Whisky”… Read More

Scotland’s legendary whisky island is getting yet another new distillery. Local officials have approved the plans for the new Elixir Distillers project just east of… Read More

By Mark Gillespie February 9, 2021 – It takes three years of waiting before “new make” spirit can legally be called whisky in Scotland. It… Read More

Mickey Heads retired recently after 13 years as Ardbeg’s distillery manager and four decades of work at distilleries on Islay and Jura. Now, Ardbeg has… Read More

Hong Kong has become a key center for the world’s whisky makers, and we had more evidence of that this week. Gordon & MacPhail’s new… Read More

By Mark Gillespie January 29, 2021 – Just weeks before Scotland’s Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival was to unveil its schedule of events for this… Read More

By Mark Gillespie January 28, 2021 – 2020 was not a good year by virtually all measurements, but the U.S. distilled spirits industry managed to squeak… Read More

For the second straight year, Islay’s biggest party of the year has been cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Fèis Ile, the Islay Festival of… Read More

By Mark Gillespie Updated January 28, 2020 – With Scotland in the middle of another lockdown because of increases in Covid-19 cases, one of the… Read More

It’s been a little more than three years since Billy Walker and his partners acquired Scotland’s GlenAllachie Distillery from Chivas Brothers. What had previously been… Read More