Demijohn News - March 2011
Our News:  
The sun shone for a week, and we believed Winter was over. Having had a weekend of fresh snow here in Scotland, I have got a feeling that our optimism was somewhat misplaced! However, the World of Demijohn has sprung into action even if nature has failed to Spring. We ran an excellent tasting evening for a family group of 20 in Edinburgh on 1st March. I have for years been joking about cats scratching their noses off the walls of our Victoria Street Shop, should you happen to swing a couple by their tails. Well with 20 guests on that particular night in the Shop, there was not much room to draw breath let alone swing cats. Tastings are alot of fun. So much so in fact, that we have no less than 3 to run in York in the next few weeks. But I have noted that a group of 10, (our minimum number for a Tasting Evening), can be difficult to arrange. So we have decided to add a new style of tasting to our list of offerings, a Tasting for Two Voucher. This is a personal hosted tasting for two adults held during normal opening hours in any of our 3 shops. For £40 a couple will be entertained for a minimum of 30 minutes by one of our highly experienced Demijohn Staff and learn a lot more about what we have on offer at Demijohn. Included in the price is a £10 voucher for spending in the shop. The Tasting for Two Voucher might make a perfect present for Mothers' Day for example or for a couple of passionate foodies visiting Edinburgh, Glasgow or York on a weekend.  Food for thought?

Event News
As Spring approaches, so does the time for us to dust off the Demijohn travelling road show and wheel it to a place near you! We have decided to give the Chester Food & Drink Festival a rest this year, so our first event for 2011 will be the brilliant, the stupendous, the magnificent Dales Festival of Food & Drink at Leyburn in North Yorkshire. It runs from Sat 30th April to Mon 2 May in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. Last year we met many other excellent producers and an enormous bevy of Foodies (or whatever the collective Noun should be for a group of foodies....bunch, scramble, handful, plateful even? suggestions in an email please if you're still with me!!). From Leyburn we hop to the excellent ABF The Soldiers' Charity Spring Fair in Hovingham (18 & 19 May) and Yorkshire Game Fair at Harewood House (29 & 30 May). Our list is long for 2011, so watch out for more event dates in our next newsletter.

Product News
It is once again whisky galore at Demijohn with the purchase of two new casks of rare Single Malt Whisky. We have acquired not only a new cask of our old house favourite Islay malt, a 10 year old Caol Ila Single Malt Whisky, but after nearly 3 and half years of haggling and negotiation, (similar to that experienced when buying a Turkish carpet!), we have finally been allowed to purchase a cask of 20 year old Bladnoch Single Malt Whisky. I count Bladnoch as my home distillery, as it lies near Wigtown in South West Scotland, or in the Lowland Malt Whisky Region. As this is one of very few casks of original Bladnoch remaining, you can understand why I might be a little passionate about it. I can certainly recommend a wee sniff when it's on tap!  We are now taking pre-orders for these unique whiskies for delivery by the end of April 2011, simply contact us to discuss an order.  Both new single malts will be on tap in our shops for all to try by mid April.

Next Month in The Demijohn News.... 
We will not only go into the full story behind our campaign for Bladnoch Whisky but we will also release our guide for making Royal Wedding Cocktails fit for a King! Brush down the garden furniture, I can feel a Spring party coming on! 




          

        Angus Ferguson
        Managing Director