Diurachs is the Gaelic word for the people of Jura.  Many moons ago, the Diurachs were entitled to distil whisky for personal consumption. Alas, all good things come to an end and meddling politicians introduced a ban in 1781.29 years later, as legend has it, Laird Archibald Campbell awoke; sober, it must be said; in the middle of the night to see the ghostly figure of an old woman hovering over his bed. She berated him over the lack of the golden liquid on the island. It was this apparition that persuaded him to reverse this punitive measure and...

Go into any pub this St Patrick's day, and you'd be forgiven for thinking the scourge of Ireland's snakes was born in St James' Gate, so cannily has a certain Dublin brewery leaped on the emerald green bandwagon with shamrock bunting, shameless hats and merchandising. Despite its considerable clout at the pumps, Guinness is not the only stout in the world though – and stout, as pleasing as it is, is emphatically not the only Irish drink worth toasting old Pádraig with, on this or any other day. If Ireland's cornered the market in beer as black as a boot,...

Everyone is Irish on March 17th, no matter where you are in the world, and St Patrick's Day in NZ is no exception. St Patrick's Day is one day of the year when it's not frowned upon to be singing in the streets with a dram of Irish whiskey in your hand... The Irish may well have invented whiskey. Certainly Bushmills can lay claim to being the oldest existing distillery in the world, having been licensed since 1608. No one is sure whether it was invented in Ireland, but the Irish version (spelt with an e before the y) is...

  The Bowmore Distillery, one of the oldest in Scotland, has stood on the shores of Loch Indaal, on the Hebridean Island of Islay, since 1779 (and quite possibly for a few years before that). This makes us the first ever distillery on the island (well, legal distillery anyway). Bowmore is one of only a few distilleries anywhere which still produces its own floor malted barley, hand-turned by traditional wooden malt shovel.For their whiskies they draw water from the Laggan River, with its rich peaty overtones, and it's the same Islay peat that fires the malt drying kiln. The famous Bowmore...

The RRP's quoted on the website are either the list price from the distributor, or sourced from the following sites: Boozee.co.nz Thewhiskyshop.co.nz Whiskygalore.co.nz Regionalwines.co.nz Lk.co.nz Glengarry.co.nz Themill.co.nz Houseofwhisky.co.nz Bottoms up, W&M