The Whisky Agency (TWA) is a German bottler founded by Ehrlich and Schneider. Carsten Ehrlich is also one of the driving forces behind The Whisky Fair, one of the most renowned whisky festivals in the world, which takes place every year in the German province of Limburg. It goes without saying that for years the two founders were working intensively with whisky before they decided themselves to start selecting and bottling. Basically bottling everything they like to drink themselves, regardless of region, distillery, age, cask or whatever. The whisky is not chillfiltered nor coloured. TWA bottles under his own name and under the labels of The Perfect Dram, Liquid Library, Liquid Sun, and Private Stock.
In 1846 Hector Henderson built the Caol Ila distillery near Port Askaig on the island of Islay. In 1854 he sold it to Norman Buchanan. Today, Coal Ila (which is Gaelic for ‘Sound of Islay’, the dangerous crossing between Islay and Jura) is the largest distillery on the island with a mash tun of 13 tonnes, 8 washbacks and 6 stills. In 1863, she became the property of Bulloch Lade & Co, whisky merchants from Glasgow. They went bankrupt in 1920. In 1927 Caol Ila was reopened by the Coal Ila Distillery Company Ltd, that would later become part of DCL, a precursor to Diageo. The distillery was closed again from 1930 to 1937 and again during the Second World War. Since 1974, the malt is purchased from the Port Ellen Maltings. They produce about 3.8 million litres of spirit per annum. It would take until 2002 before the first bottle of Caol Ila single malt was released. Before that, all production went into blend, primarily Johnnie Walker.