After some early encouragement into the whisky scene via friends and Macallan, Murdo persists with a bottle of the Night on Earth Seasonal Release, only to discover it’s a stinker.

Faced with a sea of repetitive, dull, expensive and uninspired Irish whiskey releases, a frustrated Hamish searches for a spark of inspiration to celebrate St Patrick’s and beyond.

Paisley, so inspired by her experiences with recent Glenglassaugh releases, decides to go visit. Then immediately decides not to. She shares why.

Hamish manages to (almost) avoid a smattering of golfing analogies as he uncorks Loch Lomond’s 2024, “The Open” release. It’s on the Chardonnay theme too; but not the yeast this time.

For those of us living in the wider Scotch Whisky diaspora, we often must experience Campbeltown’s mythical spirits vicariously through others. In Ogilvie’s latest, he tracks down two of the Wee Toon’s Blended Malts in this side by side comparison.

After some epiphany moments sipping Lochlea with pals, Hamish charges out to buy a bottle, only to ponder whether it’s the whisky or the company that makes the best whisky memories.

Our Dramface debutant today shares his passion for music with an appropriate release form Turntable; their malt-heavy and affordable Paradise Funk. It’s Fergus’ call as to whether it’s killer, filler or grower.

Sharing some things about the Isle of Skye that are both expected and unexpected, Dougie Crystal finds parallels in a glass of his, thus far ignored, local libation: Talisker.

When we love whisky so much, it’s hard to be brutal about some of the obvious negatives. Yet sometimes, when things are clearly wrong, we just have to call it out. This decision was not taken lightly.

Finally snagging himself an Old Forester 1920, Hamish wonders why there aren’t more nods to the past in today’s whisky making excitement. As he ponders, he dives into his Glencairn time machine and skips back 100 years to US Prohibition time.

The last thing Earie needs is more fuel for FOMO, but this time he’s on home turf. It’s different. Yet, instead of a biased review, what we actually read from this coming-of-age story is a sense of relief.

Our resident Irishman Hamish takes a St Patrick’s Day tour through Waterford’s Exploration Series peated tasting set, and finds enough of a surprise to think Irish peated is under-appreciated. ☘️

Dougie takes another look at Glasgow 1770 with two releases: their Unpeated Cognac Cask Finish and Manzanilla Sherry Cask Fully Matured. In them he finds how a few key decisions made well can swing the opinion of many.

A recent awakening to another very interesting new distillery, in his own backyard no less, has Drummond realising we are bearing witness to a grand natural experiment, and it’s yielding great results.

An occasional visit from Gilbert to ask us for our trust. He’s finding it difficult not to like a bottle that’s almost universally ignored, or even disliked. He digs beyond the tacky to work out why.

Despite a love and admiration for all things Japanese, Broddy feels burned by this sourced effort form Kaiyo, where a lot of effort has gone into producing something that’s very dull indeed. And expensive.

Fletcher finds himself pondering this Blended Malt and, feeling like he’s being forced to make cocktails with it, he stubbornly judges it neat. Redemption? Erm… no.

Ramsay only really does two drinks; whisky and beer. This one should be right up his street, a golden beer finished whisky form Glasgow Distillery, cask strength and £64 too.

Exposed and laid bare, Ogilvie’s dwindling bottle collection is without a home, meaning he’s able to see and explore what would otherwise have been ignored, such as this Irish sleeper.

Enjoying a buddy night, Broddy reflects that the takeaway was, once more, price. Inspired to find an antidote for his tasting pals, he discovers this cracking malt form Elixir.