Cask & Still’s twelfth edition looks at The Cask Scam.
In a special investigation our commissioning editor Blair Bowman, who himself is often asked to source rare casks of whisky on behalf of buyers from around the world, has become increasingly alarmed by what he sees as whisky’s Wild West.
This is a land where casks – which can cost anywhere from a couple of thousand pounds to millions – are sold in a pressurecooker sales environment by companies who have only just set up and whose background is unknown in the famously tight-knit world of whisky where everyone knows everyone, and deals are still done on a handshake.
These slick newcomers are often promising quite astonishing returns, which are of an eyebrow-raising magnitude – the figure often quoted is 582% over ten years. In fact, some are even guaranteeing what appear to be unfeasibly huge returns.
Blair warns that whisky cask investors are in serious danger of losing large amounts of money.
In Bar Snaps, we sit back and relax with a dram at Poland’s Dom Whisky, a bar with terrific drams.
Silver screen legend James Cosmo joins us for a whisky by the river in Me and My Dram.
In Six of the Best, Edinburgh’s The Herringbone gives us their best cocktail recipes, and we look at the ever-growing whisky scene in Spain.
This issue’s bluffer’s guide is about barley.
We meet Davy Ballantyre as he circumnavigates Arran with a cask on his back.
Cask & Still has the oak honey experience as Israel-based Nisnas Industries revolutionise whisky tasting with oak tumblers.
And Geraldine Coates says it’s high time someone came to the rescue of quality gin producers competing in a market saturated with spirits which are not all that they claim to be.
In beer, we learn that low alcohol and alcohol-free beers are no longer a taboo subject.
Dr Brooke Magnanti – blogger and spirit guru Belle de Jour – says apple brandy is a glassful of nostalgia to be lovingly savoured.
And in the World of Whisky, Sweden’s whisky scene is gaining significant momentum.
This issue was originally released in June 2021.
Read issue 12 of Cask & Still HERE.
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