News
Ardbeg Appoints First Female Manager in Modern Times
Published 07/11/2025
Ardbeg has appointed Bryony McNiven as its new distillery manager, effective 1 January 2026. A chemist by training and lifelong Islay local who has worked with Ardbeg for over a decade. Niven will be the first woman to hold the role in modern times. There are many jobs in the whisky industry that sound wonderfully poetic until you realise they mostly involve paperwork, boilers, and the unpredictable nature of barley.
Ardbeg Appoints First Female Manager in Modern Times
Ardent Spirits Aquires Liquidated Chapter 7 Indie Bottler
Published 06/11/2025
Update Brand Rescued by Ardent Spirits The sector specialist, as it turns out, was not a mysterious consortium of intergalactic accountants but simply Ardent Spirits, a company that already owns Dark Matter Distillers and therefore has at least some experience in handling liquids that encourage philosophical reflection. Begbies Traynor confirmed the acquisition with the solemn relief of people who have finally finished a long and deeply disappointing spreadsheet. Read full update →
Ardent Spirits Aquires Liquidated Chapter 7 Indie Bottler
Whisky Comes Marching Out of Poland (With Vodka Looking Mildly Offended)
Published 06/11/2025
Polish whisky exports have exploded in the last two years, jumping from 40 million to 197 million PLN and turning the once vodka-ruled market into an unexpected battleground. Vodka still leads in total export value, but whisky is now the country’s fastest-growing spirit, reshaping both Poland’s booze economy and its global identity. There are moments in history when entire civilizations pivot: the invention of writing, the first wheel, the discovery that cheese could be eaten and was not, in fact, a failed experiment in milk storage.
Whisky Comes Marching Out of Poland (With Vodka Looking Mildly Offended)
The Whisky That Went on Holiday to Antarctica
Published 05/11/2025
Whisky is not, by nature, an adventurous substance. It prefers to stay in one place, usually a barrel, where it can spend several quiet decades occasionally expanding, contracting and achieving a level of philosophical insight normally reserved for monks and cats. It does not expect to travel. It certainly does not expect relocation to Antarctica, a place best described as “winter that has given up any attempt at subtlety” or “Scotland as remembered by George R.
The Whisky That Went on Holiday to Antarctica
Macallan Distillery Engineers Go On Strike
Published 05/11/2025
Well, it appears there’s trouble brewing in the land of whisky. Not the kind you’d expect, mind you, where brawny Scotsmen with beards the size of small towns throw back a dram or two and start singing ballads. No, this is more of a bureaucratic affair. One where the engineers at Macallan, these days less a distillery than a liquid investment portfolio with caramel colouring, have decided to strike. For most of their careers, the engineers at Edrington’s Speyside distilleries had relied on a quiet understanding with the universe.
Macallan Distillery Engineers Go On Strike