The festive season is always an interesting time for whisky enthusiasts. Off-licences, supermarkets and other retailers jostle for customers’ money with often incredibly good deals on all sorts of whiskies.
Hence, you can buy not just great Christmas presents but some goodies for your own cabinet to keep you warm and contented well into the coming year.
Also, some single-cask or one-off malts are unveiled to catch the yuletide spending spree.
One of the most intriguing is another Glen Moray Warehouse 1 special, distilled in 1998, matured in ex-bourbon barrels and finished for 18 months in three ex-Barolo casks.
Hailed as a great Italian red, made in the Piedmont region from Nebbiolo grapes, Barolo has a purply red colour, captured in the wood, which bestows a ruby glow and Mediterranean panoply of flavours on the 863 bottles of Glen Moray Barolo Finish, all cask strength, natural colour and non-chill filtered.
It is the latest in a range of special Glen Moray Warehouse 1 bottlings, all finished in selected wine casks from, among others, sauternes, burgundy and Tokaji, with more to come.
Barolo Finish is only available in the UK from specialist outlets. Bottled at 52.9% abv, the traditionally-shaped 70cl bottle is priced at £139.95.
Charity auction on December 3
For whisky collectors with ample wallets, December 3 at Barnbougle Castle at Dalmeny near Edinburgh is the place to be.
In the first of three biennial charity auctions, some 41 lots of truly amazing whiskies, from single bottles to whole casks, go under the Sotheby’s hammer.
Offering inaugural bottles from recently-built distilleries to whiskies three generations and more old, the Distillers’ One of One charity auction is expected to raise a million pounds for disadvantaged youngsters in Scotland.
Whisky collectors’ eyes will pop at the auction list, with anticipated prices ranging from £1,500 for a bottle up to possibly £500,000 for a rare cask.
Lots have been contributed by all major whisky firms, whether distillers, blenders or wholesalers, as well as from new arrivals on the whisky scene.
These include Courier area distilleries Arbikie, Aberargie and Lindores Abbey and the new Islay distillery, Ardnahoe.
The full list can be seen on the Distillers’ One of One website.