Dumgoyne, 13 April 2010: Glengoyne Distillery has launched an exciting new menu of tours in time for the busy summer visitor season. Joining the already highly popular and acclaimed selection of tours will be Cask Idol - The Search for the Perfect Dram and A Century of Whisky.

Cask Idol - The Search for the Perfect Dram (£70 per person) offers a once in a lifetime opportunity to become part of the Glengoyne Selection Panel and help select the first ever Glengoyne Distillery Exclusive Single Cask Whisky, to be bottled in 2011.

Following an in-depth Glengoyne Distillery tour and a visit to the legendary Warehouse No. 8, visitors are guided through Glengoyne's last three Single Cask releases learning to nose, taste and write tasting notes as they go.

Visitors then judge three mature samples drawn from the cask and are asked to write their own tasting notes for each. The most popular cask will be announced in April 2011 and released with one lucky fan's name and tasting notes displayed on the label. Visitors on the Cask Idol tour will have exclusive first access to the chosen single cask bottling when released.

Perfect for enthusiasts of old and rare whiskies, A Century of Whisky (£150 per person) includes a tutored tasting of Glengoyne Distillery's oldest, most valuable, and finest Highland Single Malt: the Glengoyne 40 Years Old, worth £200 per dram,as well as theexceptionally rare Isle of Skye 50 Years Old blended Scotch whisky. These two unparalleled whiskies, along with the Glengoyne 10 Years Old, represent a century of maturation.

The Glengoyne team will bring these great drams to life, sharing their distillation, maturation and flavour profiles - exposing 100 years of hopes and fears, of wandering legs and golden tears. Each dram will be tasted in its own bespoke crystal 'copita' glass, which guests take home as a memento of the day.  This is a truly unique opportunity to taste rare and expensive, top quality whiskies. Only 400 bottles of the Isle of Skye 50 Years Old blended Scotch Whisky, and 250 crystal decanters of the Glengoyne 40 Years Old Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky were produced, costing £1,000 and £3,750 respectively.

Stuart Hendry, Brand Heritage Manager for Glengoyne commented: "At Glengoyne we make Single Malt Whisky without cutting corners. We fill Scotland's slowest distilled spirit into the world's finest casks. These new visits allow us to really take Glengoyne fans inside the cask and let them become a part of the Distillery's history. This sort of thing just doesn't happen at normal distilleries."

The new tours join the existing tasting tours, which start from just £6.50 and have been heralded as 'THE Best Whisky Tour' by The Sunday Times. Other options include the Master Class (£100), the most in depth and comprehensive distillery tour in Scotland, as well as the exclusive Master Blender Session (£30) during which guests learn the dark art of the Master Blender and create their very own blend to be bottled and taken home.

To book your place or find out more please contact the distillery on 01360 550254.

For full details of the tour menu, visit: www.glengoyne.com

Glengoyne is one of Scotland's most accessible distilleries, located just 30 minutes north of Glasgow and looking out over the breath-taking West Highland Way.

Glengoyne Highland Single Malt Scotch Whisky encourages responsible drinking

www.drinkaware.co.uk        www.scotch-whisky.org.uk

Contacts:                     

For further information and high res images contact:

Alison Liddy / Laura Campbell

Profile Plus

T: 0131 554 6111

E: alison@profileplus.co.uk;laura@profileplus.co.uk

Stuart Hendry, Brand Heritage Manager

Glengoyne Distillery

T: 01360 550 229

E: stuart@glengoyne.com

Notes to editors:

• New Cask Idol and Century of Whisky Tours are available from 19 April 2010
• Full menu of tours is available all year round
• Cask Idol tour lasts 2 ½ hours, A Century of Whisky lasts 2 hours

Glengoyne Tour accolades;

THE best whisky tour - Sunday Times

Glengoyne leads the pack - Malt Advocate

There is no better place on earth to sit and sip malt whisky - Richard Grindal - The Spirit of Whisky