What I'm about to do next?

Dear readers,

I've now reached a time in my tasting career(?!?) where I find it harder to get the whiskies which I base most of my reviews on. Miniatures from GB are due to new laws, harder to ship to Norway at affordable prices. The sellers of samples (3cls) are requiring more and more money for exclusive whiskies while the range of affordable samples are getting tinier by the minute. Whisky in general are becoming younger and younger while the prices are sky-rocketing. This have lead me to the wise, yet devastatingly dreadful decision to stop this blog. That sounded dramatic! Well, not totally stop it, I'll sure be posting some new whiskies once in a while, or other whisky stuff like from festivals, tastings I've been to or such. But the www.maltdiary.com will from now on be more of a monthly thing, or maybe not even so, in my life. The reasons for this are simple ones, I'm about to move from my home in central Kristiansand Norway and that takes both time and effort, I'm about to become a father, and I feel that the whisky industry is going in a direction I'm not too found of. Younger and more expensive whisky! But, there are still distilleries that thankfully keeps going steady strong. This blog have become a phenomenon in my life and I don't believe there are many like it out there. I went through the links at whiskyfun.com and found most of the links were either down or active like a sloth. I'm proud to have completed nearly, and sure to be before I'm finished, 5 whole years of interesting whisky tastings. I've had 1938 Mortlach and 1948 Glenlivet amongst others, but also fantastic Inchgowers, Fettercairns, Bruichladdichs, Laphroaigs, Clynelishes, Ardmores, Broras, Kilchomans, Highland Parks, Taliskers, Port Ellens, Banffs, and even more. The list is too long... www.maltdiary.com have had a steady and increasing flow of visitors through the years, showing that one day there might be 680 visitors from USA, the next day there might be 27 from Bangladesh, it shows that whisky has a broad interest in many different cultures. But after all, this site was never intended for me to read comments or count visitors, it was a way of showing how a young man could get to taste many whiskies from most of Scotlands distilleries in half a decade without having all that money or contacts within the industry. I'm 100% independent, I've tried about 10-60 whiskies from every single malt distillery available in Scotland, except Ben Wyvis, I'm still regretting not buying that one Ben Wyvis when I had a chance at it at 70GBP a couple years ago. I've wanted to try both closed and open distilleries, Highlands, Lowlands, Campbeltowns and so on, and much so try whiskies which are representatives of the distillery character. I believe many people today would try the consecutive Special Releases of Brora and Port Ellen and rave about how it's a shame they closed down. Great distilleries, no doubt. But remember, its really when you sit down with down with a youngster from a tired cask you really get the idea of how great the distillate really was, and not by that one cask that had some exquisite malt 30+ years after the distillery's closure and costs about the same as a car.

In the following sessions I will taste most of the distilleries which closed in Scotland after 1950, and in most cases both younger and older ones, and I hope you'll join me into a fantastic journey of whisky that in most cases, won't ever be repeated. Its been fun and its been an hobby thats left me with some fantastic moments with what I consider the best liquid in the world. But now its time to focus on other aspects in my life. I hope you'll follow me through the lost distilleries of Scotland in the following months, it's been an privilege, a joy and most of all an honor to share my experiences of the whisky world with you.



Thanks,

Jonas Bratteli