This is a bit of a first.

Back in April a dedicated band of Whisky Squadders made our way out to visit the Secret Headquarters of the chaps from Master of Malt, and one of the many wonderful activities we did was to select a cask of Allt-a-Bhainne to bottle for the Batch 1 release in the “That Boutique-y Whisky Company” range – and come up with a design idea for the label, famously featuring bizarre cartoons of whisky-related shennanigans.

And here we are!

Allt-a-Bhainne, a Speyside whisky from the Pernod Ricard (+ Chivas Bros) portfolio and not often seen as a single malt release, is named for the Gaelic meaning “Burn of Milk”.  A couple of the Squad quickly realised that the pronounciation “Ollt-of-Vain” sounded a bit like “House of Pain” – and so a label was born!

I don’t have any of the tasting notes to hand from the actual day, but the official Master of Malt notes are:

Nose: Fizzy apple belts, lemon curd and buttered toast.
Palate: Nice biscuits and green apple slices with oak influence developing.
Finish: Long with a little of everything that went before in support of delightful toasted oakiness.

If you’d like to read more about this release (and the other two in the same series which came out on the same day – featuring Edinburgh Whisky Blog and the Famous Loch Ness Whisky Parliament), check out the Master of Malt blog post.

Available from Master of Malt – £44.95 (49.2%abv, 50cl). 304 bottles.

Why settle for having a statue of yourself erected when you can own a bottle of limited-release whisky with a picture of yourself on it represented in cartoon cow form?

The full range of That Boutique-y Whisky Company whiskies (and their unique labels, drawn by Glaswegian illustrator Emily Chappell) can be found here.