DramMaster Daily Whisky News — 8 July 2026

The Dalmore Adds 17 Year Old to Principal Collection — First New Expression Since 2022

The Dalmore has launched a 17 Year Old single malt in the US market — the first new addition to the distillery's Principal Collection since 2022 and the deepest sherry maturation the collection has seen.

The whisky begins in American white oak ex-bourbon barrels, building a foundation of soft vanilla and honey. It is then finished in a trilogy of aged sherry casks sourced exclusively from González Byass: Amoroso, rare Apóstoles, and Matusalem Oloroso. The Dalmore calls this the oldest expression in its portfolio to be finished in all three cask types simultaneously, and says no other distillery has access to this precise combination — a claim rooted in the distillery's more than 100-year partnership with the Jerez bodega.

Bottled at 42% ABV (84 proof) in a 750ml format, the Dalmore 17 Year Old carries an SRP of $250. It comes in a vivid-purple gift box with magnetic closure, housing the distillery's signature silhouette bottle with its 12-point Royal Stag emblem — a mark that has adorned every bottle since 1878, when descendants of Clan Mackenzie took over the distillery. Founded in 1839 on the shores of the Cromarty Firth, The Dalmore has been making whisky for over 180 years.

The expression is positioned as the natural progression after the Dalmore 15 Year Old, aimed at drinkers seeking a deeper sherry-matured experience.

Murray's take: The Dalmore doesn't release new core expressions often — four years between additions tells you this was planned, not rushed. The three-cask sherry finish is the story here. Amoroso, Apóstoles, and Matusalem Oloroso are not interchangeable profiles; each brings a different weight, sweetness, and dried-fruit character to the spirit. The 100-year González Byass relationship is a genuine competitive moat — other distilleries buy sherry casks, but The Dalmore has first access to casks that have spent decades absorbing flavour before any whisky touches them. $250 for a 17-year-old from this cask programme is premium but not irrational. The Dalmore sits in the luxury-single-malt corridor, and this expression is built to justify that position. Whether it tastes like $250 worth of sherry mastery or just $250 worth of packaging is a question the glass will answer. The 42% ABV is a conservative bottling strength — not cask strength, not 46%, but the standard for the Principal Collection. A dram to mark an occasion, not a Tuesday.

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Cù Bòcan Creation #8 — First Peated Scotch Matured in Ice Wine Casks

Cù Bòcan, the experimental peated single malt brand from Tomatin Distillery, has released Creation #8 — claimed as the first known peated Scotch whisky matured in Canadian ice wine casks.

Bottled at 46% ABV and limited to 3,600 bottles, Creation #8 carries an RRP of £45. It went on sale on 20 May through the Tomatin website and specialist retailers in the UK and worldwide. The expression uses a dual cask maturation: 18-year-old spirit from Canadian ice wine casks sourced from Pillitteri, a family-owned Ontario winery, combined with 16-year-old spirit from Spanish Verdejo wine casks from Belondrade, a French-owned winery in Rueda.

Ice wine is a sweet dessert wine made from grapes left to freeze on the vine before harvesting, pressed at around -7°C to yield a small amount of highly concentrated sugary juice. Verdejo is a white wine known for fresh, zesty, and herbal character. The Verdejo casks were filled with spirit just weeks after the wine was emptied — an experimental decision the distillery made to capture the wine's active influence.

The 18-year-old ice wine cask spirit contributes notes of apricot jam, candied peach, and pineapple syrup. The 16-year-old Verdejo cask spirit adds citrus, herbal, and grassy characteristics. Tasting notes describe the nose as baked apples, apricot jam, candied peach, and heather smoke; the palate as silky and sweet, turning fresher and slightly smoky, with honeycomb, pineapple syrup, and lime zest; the finish as sweet wine and fruit fading into smoky honey, citrus peel, and soft oak spice. The bottling is natural in colour and non-chill filtered.

Jamie Muir, distillery manager at Tomatin, said: "Marking the oldest release in the series to date, Cù Bòcan Creation #8 is a pioneering single malt, marrying our gently peated spirit with the bold sweetness of Canadian ice wine casks, something we believe has never been done before with a peated Scotch."

Murray's take: Ice wine casks and peated spirit is a combination nobody else has tried, and the reason nobody has tried it is that ice wine is assertive, sweet, and botrytis-adjacent — it can steamroller a delicate spirit. But Cù Bòcan is lightly peated, not Islay-aggressive, and the 18-year-old spirit has the weight to push back. £45 for 3,600 bottles of a 46% ABV, non-chill-filtered, naturally coloured single malt that genuinely breaks new cask ground — that is honest pricing for an experimental release. The Verdejo component is the quieter half of the story, but filling casks weeks after emptying them is the kind of decision that shows a distillery thinking about cask dynamics, not just cask marketing. The Creations series has been Tomatin's laboratory for years. This is the most ambitious experiment yet.

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IWSC 2026 Names Seven Gold-Medal Scotch Whiskies Under $70

The 2026 International Wine & Spirit Competition has recognised seven Scotch whiskies with gold medals and scores of 95 points or higher — all priced under $70. The list, compiled by whisky writer Phil Dwyer for The Whiskey Wash, spans Islay, Speyside, the Highlands, and blended categories.

Bowmore 9 Year Old (40% ABV, £26/$32) took Spirit Gold Outstanding with 98 points — the highest score in the group. Matured in ex-bourbon casks with some ex-European oak sherry casks, it delivers gently peated, sweet, orchard fruit character with malty and honeyed notes. A huge year for Bowmore, whose 21 Year Old also picked up a major award earlier in 2026.

Loch Lomond Inchmurrin 12 Year Old (46% ABV, £36/$44) scored 96 points for Spirit Gold. Distilled in Loch Lomond's straight-neck pot stills, it is the only core release from the distillery that contains no peated whisky. Tropical fruits, melon, guava on the nose; gentle spice and warm honey on the palate.

Glenmorangie 14 Year Old Quinta Ruban (46% ABV, £38/$48) also scored 96 points. Ex-bourbon matured, then finished for four years in ex-ruby port casks, adding orange, dark chocolate, soft red fruits, and the coconut and toffee notes Glenmorangie is known for.

Aberlour 12 Year Old Double Cask (40% ABV, £43/$55) scored 95 points. A marriage of ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks delivering rich fruits, spiced milk chocolate, red grapes, and toffee — classic Speyside character.

Glen Moray Forbidden Fruit (40% ABV, £36/$44) scored 95 points. Finished in ex-Calvados casks, it brings apples, apples, and more apples — crisp, sweet, and built for summer.

Nobel Rebel Orchard Outburst (46% ABV, £39/$49) scored 95 points. A blend of Scotch whiskies assembled by Michael Henry at Loch Lomond using white wine yeast, focused on bright, crisp green flavours of pears, apples, and grapes.

Tormore 12 Year Old (46% ABV, £54/$68) rounded out the list at 95 points.

Murray's take: 98 points for a 9-year-old Islay single malt at £26 is the headline. Bowmore 9 Year Old is not a luxury bottling — it is a working whisky that walked into one of the world's most rigorous spirits competitions and scored higher than bottles costing five times as much. The rest of the list tells a consistent story: 46% ABV beats 40% ABV on the awards table (four of the seven are 46%), non-chill-filtered expressions outscore their filtered siblings, and cask finishing — port, Calvados, sherry — still wins points when the base spirit is good. The two Loch Lomond entries (Inchmurrin and Nobel Rebel) confirm what Michael Henry has been doing quietly for years: making interesting whisky at prices that don't require a second mortgage. If you want to know what good whisky looks like when nobody is trying to impress you, start here.

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Cask Connoisseur Ranks UK & Ireland's Most Popular Whisky Distilleries for 2026

Cask Connoisseur has released its fourth annual ranking of the UK and Ireland's favourite whisky distilleries, scoring 295 distilleries across Google ratings, TripAdvisor reviews, and social media metrics covering Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn. The index measures online popularity and visitor reputation — not spirit quality.

Teeling Irish Whiskey (Dublin) retained the number one spot, stretching its lead by 142 points. Opened in 2015, the distillery brought distilling back to the Irish capital for the first time in 125 years and welcomes 115,000–130,000 visitors annually, including its one-millionth visitor last May. Bacardi took full ownership of Teeling last month, with founders Jack and Stephen Teeling remaining to drive growth.

Glenfiddich (Dufftown) rose four spots to second place, buoyed by its 1.3 million Facebook followers and 346,000 Instagram followers, plus its ties to Formula One and Aston Martin. The distillery offers three tour experiences covering its 130-year history and solera process.

Lindores Abbey (Fife) broke into the top three. The distillery sits across from the ruins of Lindores Abbey monastery, widely regarded as the spiritual home of Scotch. It welcomed visitors from 70 different countries, though it also confirmed a small number of redundancies in February following a strategic review. Last month it unveiled Nectere, a single malt aged in four different types of Sherry casks.

Kilchoman (Islay) placed seventh — the sole Islay representative. The farm distillery's recent installation of a new EE mast on the west coast of Islay fixed a long-standing 4G coverage gap. General manager Islay Heads noted visitors can now post reviews and photos before leaving the site: "We can also now run live presentations and tastings from areas outside the distillery."

Isle of Harris was the biggest climber, rising 23 spots to ninth place. The distillery appeared in the Golden Globes goody bag (valued at nearly $1 million) and released expressions in global travel retail and with menswear brand Sunspel — though it also announced job cuts and production reductions last April.

Scotland dominated the top 10 with six distilleries. No Northern Ireland or Welsh distilleries made the top tier.

Murray's take: Popularity is not quality. Cask Connoisseur says so themselves. What this list measures is digital footprint, visitor footfall, and social reach — and those things drive revenue. Teeling at number one tells you something about the Irish whiskey resurgence: a distillery that opened a decade ago, hit a million visitors, and just got bought by Bacardi. That's a commercial success story, not a tasting note. Glenfiddich at number two is the power of marketing budget — 1.3 million Facebook followers and an Aston Martin partnership will move you up any social-indexed ranking. The interesting entries are further down: Lindores Abbey trading on history rather than scale, Kilchoman fixing its 4G problem so visitors can actually post from the site, and Isle of Harris climbing 23 places on the back of a Golden Globes goody bag appearance. The distillery that turns up in a celebrity gift bag gains more social traction than one that releases a 95-point whisky. That's the internet. Whether it's the whisky is a different question.

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WhistlePig Sells New York Warehouse Facility for $17 Million

Vermont-based whiskey maker WhistlePig has sold its Moriah warehousing facility in Mineville, New York, to a Delaware-registered investor group called Zags 26 for approximately $17 million.

CEO Alex Roberts confirmed the sale to The Spirits Business, stating: "The transaction allows WhistlePig to free up capital that will be reinvested in the continued growth of the brand." Roberts noted the sale "does not impact day-to-day operations or production."

The facility includes seven 14,000-square-foot barrel warehouses and a 14,000-square-foot bottling plant, capable of housing more than 200,000 barrels. Zags 26 was founded on 1 January 2026 and is linked to Essential Properties Realty Trust, a Princeton, New Jersey-based real estate company led by CEO Peter M. Mavoides. Despite the sale, Moriah Ventures renewed its distilling license on 19 May 2026 — still in WhistlePig's name, effective 1 June through 31 May 2029.

The sale comes amid a period of leadership change. Charles Gibb left WhistlePig in February 2026 after eight months as CEO, succeeded by Roberts, who joined the company as CFO in December 2017. Last year, WhistlePig opened its Vault visitor experience in Louisville, Kentucky. In 2020, LVMH's wine and spirits arm, Moët Hennessy, acquired a minority stake.

The Moriah site had drawn scrutiny after the town and Adirondack Park reported the presence of "whiskey fungus" — which feeds on ethanol vapours and creates black staining on nearby buildings — two years ago.

Murray's take: A sale-leaseback is a standard real estate move — you sell the building, keep the operation, and put the cash into something that generates a higher return than warehousing. $17 million for seven barrel warehouses and a bottling line is a fair price for industrial property in upstate New York. What's more interesting is the timing. WhistlePig has had three CEOs in two years, took LVMH minority money in 2020, and is now monetising its physical assets. That's a company raising capital — not necessarily a company in trouble, but a company that needs cash for growth and is willing to sell real estate to get it. The license renewal running through 2029 says WhistlePig isn't leaving Moriah. The new owner is a real estate trust, not a whiskey company. This is a landlord-tenant arrangement dressed as a divestment. Whether WhistlePig reinvests the $17 million into liquid, marketing, or another visitor experience will tell you what kind of growth they're chasing. The whiskey fungus is a footnote — it was reported two years ago and didn't stop the sale. The black staining is the cost of living next to a barrel warehouse. Nobody moved out.

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