Following on the previous Friends of Laphroaig email, John Campbell has sent out another letter with official details of the Distillery Live event on September 25, 2009 at Maker’s Mark Distillery. News since the last letter includes the creation of a web site dedicated to the event at http://www.distillerylive.us.com.
Update 9/26/09: For those who missed it, here is a link to a video of the event: Laphroaig Distillery Live
Here’s the official letter:
Dear Friend of Laphroaig,
I promised in my last e-mail that I would write to you again with all the final details for the live Webcast we will be doing at Maker’s Mark Distillery in Kentucky, so here they are.
The online event will be happening on Friday, September 25 at 8 p.m. Kentucky time, which I’m told is Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). I believe that works out to 1 a.m. on Saturday the 26th for the UK. I know this isn’t an ideal time for our FOLs in Europe, but the video will be available a week or so later on the Laphroaig Web site for you to watch at your leisure if you can’t tune in live.
I hope as many of you as possible tune in live to submit questions to the panel (Kevin Smith from Maker’s Mark, John Hansell who is the Editor of Malt Advocate and, of course, myself) during the show. Anyone whose question is read out during the live broadcast will be sent a special prize as well, so remember to include your e-mail address when you submit the question.
We also have a special Web page set up which has a countdown on it, as well as some further information on the event. Go to http://www.distillerylive.us.com and make sure you bookmark the page so that you don’t forget the address on the 25th.
As I mentioned in my last e-mail, we will be tasting a range of Laphroaig expressions, including the 10 Year Old, the new 18 Year Old and the 25 Year Old. There are also some special items I am really excited about. The guys over at Maker’s Mark have found a famous chef who is going to cook some lovely food for us – designed to complement Laphroaig and Maker’s Mark whiskies. Hopefully I can get hold of the recipes in advance so all you culinary experts can try out the recipes, too.
As I mentioned in the last e-mail, we will also have a cocktail section. Thanks go to everyone who has already e-mailed me their suggestions for cocktails. We’ve had a lot of fun trying out your recipes. Remember, anyone whose cocktail is made during the show will win a special prize. If you haven’t e-mailed your suggestion, you still can. Just drop me a line at info@laphroaig.com with the subject line: Distillery Live recipes.
In other news, I have created a Twitter account – I am still a bit of a novice but am really enjoying connecting with some more FOLs from around the world in real-time. If you would like to follow my “tweets” (as I have been told they are called) then go to http://www.twitter.com/laphroaigwhisky. I will be updating with news in the build-up to Distillery Live, and I will, of course, also be updating the FOL homepage.
Slàinte,
John Campbell
Distillery Manager
Scotch Hobbyist's Blog 
Not entirely new, the website has been making the rounds on Twitter for a while now (and a few website ;-))
One thing not mentioned in the letter is that there’s also a Twitter account for it: http://twitter.com/DistilleryLive
No, not new in absolute terms. I just said that it was new since the last letter (which it is).
Just passing along the letter for those who aren’t on the list, definitely not trying to steal any “breaking Islay news” thunder from other sites.
People should go to http://www.islayblog.com/ for that. 🙂
Cheers,
Jeff
Ah, seems we both misunderstood each other 😉
Wasn’t intending to criticise you, yet may be came over like I did. At the same time I didn’t fully appreciate what you were saying. Think we’re all good now.
Only thing where there still seems to be a bit of confusion is what the time means for us here in Europe, how to convert it correctly. John doesn’t seem to be entirely sure, I’m not sure either.
I hope you guys over there can sort us out, in particular in regards to summer time or not. Is it really EDT or “EST” (not sure what it’s called)?
Thanks for clarifying Armin. I’m glad I didn’t step on any toes. 🙂
Assuming that it is indeed at 8pm EDT (GMT – 4), which is the timezone that part of Kentucky is in, then yes, it works out to 1 am UK time (GMT + 1).
Although, if I’m reading it right, the countdown clock on distillerylive.us.com is currently counting down to 4:00 am EDT on the 26th. Hopefully they’ll correct that.
Thanks,
Jeff
I got a tweet from @DistilleryLive that they’ve fixed the countdown clock.