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UPDATE: Silver Award winner in the Experiential Design category at 2025's Scottish Design Awards and one of Time magazine's 'World's Greatest Places of 2025' In a historic moment for Islay, Scotch and the wider whisky world, the iconic Port Ellen Distillery has been brought back to life after more than four decades’ closure. Building on… Continue reading A Legend Reborn
Last year, I was lucky enough to visit some of the world’s best bars, including The Dead Rabbit and Dante in NYC, Thirteen, The Gothic Bar and Lyaness (nearly) in London and Edinburgh’s Panda & Sons. Looking at my admittedly amateur pics afterwards got me thinking: Why don’t more bars include imagery on their cocktail… Continue reading Love cocktails? Answer me this…
If you’re lucky enough to receive a promotional sample of whisky, don’t make the same mistake I did. Around 15 years ago, when I was writing all of Bowmore’s packaging copy, I was commissioned to pen a very special booklet for an even more special single malt. Laid down on 29 March 1969, this particular… Continue reading Angels, I want my whisky back 🙏
Scottish Gaelic for ‘monster’, Uile-bheist (pronounced EWL-uh-Vehst) is a new, low carbon craft distillery, brewery and visitor experience in the heart of Inverness, the Capital of the Highlands. Rising from the banks of the mighty River Ness, close to where legend tells us Saint Columba once banished a certain “water monster” back into the river,… Continue reading Telling tales
In April, I was fortunate enough to visit the whisky isle of Islay on a project for soon to be reopened Port Ellen Distillery. While there, I made the most of the opportunity – and the glorious weather – to ‘bag’ a few of the other distilleries I’ve written for over the years, including the… Continue reading Mastering smoke
John Ormston Copywriting 