Spring 2025 Banquet

The Keepers Journal

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Rising spirits in Türkiye

  • Gavin Smith
  • January 13 2025

How did Türkiye become one of the world’s fastest growing export markets for Scotch? Two Istanbul-based Keepers help Fraser Allen ...

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A rose by any other name

  • Gavin Smith
  • January 13 2025

Things have changed a bit since Rosebank Distillery closed in 1993. Dave Broom discovers what happens when a legendary distillery ...

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Holistic approach

  • Gavin Smith
  • January 13 2025

Heritage barleys and regenerative farming practices all help increase yield and improve the flavour of whisky. Gavin D Smith ...

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Learning from the past

  • Roddy Martine
  • January 13 2025

Nick Morgan delves deep into a new book that holds the secrets of whisky distillation in the 19th century.

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Landmark achievement

  • Roddy Martine
  • January 13 2025

2024 marks the bicentenary of seven Scotch whisky distilleries. Stewart McRobert explains the significant event.

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Heaven on earth?

  • Roddy Martine
  • January 13 2025

Richard Goslan trawls some of the best whisky bars in the world to bring you the definitive list. Which is your favourite?

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Glow with the flow

  • Roddy Martine
  • January 13 2025

Neil Braidwood returns to the Scotch Whisky Experience in Edinburgh and finds that a lot has changed since his last visit

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What tradition?

  • Roddy Martine
  • January 13 2025

THINK of the tradition of whisky drinking as it has grown up over the centuries in Scotland and you might well conjure up images ...

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Sail Away

  • Roddy Martine
  • January 13 2025

Tim Moore cruises around the distilleries of the glorious western Isles on a tall ship

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Forget Not

  • Roddy Martine
  • January 13 2025

Roddy Martine remembers Iona, Duchess of Argyll, who died on 22 February 2024. IONA, Duchess of Argyll was the 16th Grand Master ...

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Still Game

  • Gavin Smith
  • January 13 2025

Visit almost any Scottish distillery today, and the likelihood is that the people charged with overseeing production and ...

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Tradition and Transformation

  • Roddy Martine
  • January 13 2025

Ewen Mackintosh has retired from his role as Managing Director of Gordon & MacPhail, but not before helping the company ...

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Guest of Honour - Diana Gabaldon

  • Roddy Martine
  • January 13 2025

The Spring Banquet welcomed best-selling novelist Diana Gabaldon. Roddy Martine looks at her life.

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Retirement From The Industry

  • Gavin Smith
  • December 14 2023

Is it the end of the road when you retire from the whisky industry? Not at all, discovers Gavin Smith, who speaks to five legends ...

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Music and Scotch Whisky

  • Annabel Meikle
  • December 14 2023

IT WAS the gig that stopped the whisky stills.

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Net Zero - can we get there

  • Matt Chambers
  • December 14 2023

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Guest of Honour - Kenton Cool OBE

  • Roddy Martine
  • December 14 2023

The Autumn 2023 Banquet welcomed climber and motivational speaker Kenton Cool OBE. Roddy Martine looks at his life.

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The rise of the Scotch and soda

  • Tracy Wason
  • December 4 2023

The rapid growth of blended Scotch in the last quarter of the 19th century turned the world of whisky upside down. “Blended ...

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Sir Walter Scott, Saviour of Scotland

  • Annabel Meikle
  • August 6 2021

Ian Smith celebrates Sir Walter Scott on the 250th anniversary of his birth. As the fine dinner draws to its climax the ...

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