Find the Perfect Pairing for Your Holiday Meal

The holidays ask a lot of what’s in your glass. Wines need to welcome guests, carry meals, and hold their own long after the plates are cleared. This guide reflects our aapproach to seasonal pairings, moving from sparkling wines that start the evening right, to whites and reds that complement the table with ease, and finishing with Scotch that’s meant for lingering conversations. Each section highlights bottles we trust for holiday meals with a focus on versatility, balance, and value.

People Want Great Scotch at Great Prices!

For the holidays this year, we celebrate a newly minted whisky season with an impeccable lineup of 10 single casks of Scotch from our dear friends at Douglas Laing in Glasgow. The wonderful and historic bottler has never failed to bring exciting casks to market, but we’ve turned up the value this year—fighting rising costs and bureaucratic delay to offer a wide variety of unique casks at market beating prices. These are some of the most unique and delicious barrels we’ve ever sourced from the storied bottler, and the prices send a message to the market at large: PEOPLE WANT GREAT SCOTCH AT GREAT PRICES!

Into the Diving Bell: Ardbeg: The Abyss Surfaces at K&L—Auction Now Live!

Imagine strapping yourself into a Victorian diving suit, lowering into the inky Atlantic, and finding—rather than shipwrecks and squid—an old Ardbeg cask still breathing with smoke and sea. That’s the feel of Ardbeg: The Abyss, a 34-year-old Islay single malt Scotch surfacing this October at K&L’s spirits auction… with a $1 reserve. Yes, one dollar. Try not to hyperventilate through your regulator.

What I'm Excited About This Week: Day Drinking With David (Staff Edition)

My picks for the week highlight the cool factor in what we bring in as well as some great value. We started with a ready-to-drink infused gin drink called Sweet Gwendoline Fig And Wine Infused French Gin $36.99. It was super tasty and a nice start to the whole thing.

What’s New for September: Bourbon, Bordeaux, Brunello

September brings another packed lineup of news and offers from K&L: our Top Ten Picks of the month, a tariff update and what it means for our customers, the much-anticipated 2020 Brunello arrivals, a standout Compass Box three-pack, and new Discovery Series arrivals. Here’s everything you’ll want to know this month.

One of the Most Epic Collaborations in Our History: Custom-Blended Compass Box

Compass Box and K&L have always had a special relationship. Since the inception of this special brand 25 years ago, we've seen eye to eye on every aspect of this business. It wasn't until 2011 that we were able to connect with legendary whiskymaker John Glasser about the potential to do an exclusive for K&L. We had access to anything back then, but one trophy alluded K&L and exclusive Compass Box. That was until 2015 when John Glaser invited our spirits buying team to select an exclusive blend from their stocks, a now legendary blend of old peated malt and a sherry aged malt—5th and Harrison was born. Now 10 years later, we were honored and surprised when James Saxon, Compass Box Master Blender, agreed to build a special batch just for us once again. We had a recipe that we loved, old peat and heavy sherry, but could they pull it off? Of course they did!

June 1st 2025 – June 14th 2025: Second Spirit Auction Highlights

We have such an incredibly diverse set of offerings in this auction, but as we were putting it together there were some bottles that stood out–sometimes because of what was in the bottle, and sometimes because what was outside the bottle! Here is our top 10 list, in no particular order (and apologies to the other 300+ bottles that didn’t make this list).

At Thanksgiving, Wines Accompany So Much More Than Just the Meal

I think it’s worth mentioning that the magic of the holiday happens during the times that aren’t the meal itself. Wednesday night cocktails when everyone first arrives and catches up, or the chaos of too many cooks in the kitchen on Thursday as everything comes together. These are the moments where wines can come from anywhere—they just need to bring smiles to faces. Here are the wines I would pick for my Thanksgiving—selections that will make any wine enthusiast feel at home, but are also easy to enjoy for anyone just looking to grab a glass.

Spirits Newsletter: Collectible Scotch, Armagnac Rarities, and New Craft Gins

Our spirits inventory has seen a tidal wave of new arrivals, and not just in the familiar categories. Of course, Scotch is on fire lately with a treasure trove of spectacular bottlings from Redacted Bros. (aka Thompson Bros.) and Dramfool, but we've also just taken in a jaw-dropping line-up of rare Armagnacs, and a long-anticipated trio of stunning craft gins from Sweden.

Dramfool Draws on One of Whisky's Best Palates to Bottle Exceptional Scotch

Dramfool has been bottling independent casks since 2015. Across scores of bottlings, they’ve earned a phenomenal reputation for quality and for their ability to bottle unique casks that simply cannot be had from any other source.

Scotch’s Most Exciting Distiller: The Thompson Bros.

There’s something about the boys in Dornoch that just gets people to open doors for them. The Thompson brothers are the real deal. They’ve been the proprietors of one of Scotland’s finest whisky bars for many years now, and, in their spare time, they’ve built an incredible distillery in the back shed, which is pushing the limits of modern single malt back to its heyday.… They get access to quality stock where others have faltered. Whether that’s due to the good will they’ve garnered behind the bar at the Dornoch Hotel or simply because they’re pretty groovy guys, no one will ever know, but their cask selections have always over-delivered at extremely reasonable price points.

The Best Whiskies for Dad

Today's Newsletter is a quick dash through the spirit realm to bring you up to speed on what our intrepid buying team has been putting together in time for Father's Day. New containers of K&L Exclusive Casks have our single-malt Scotch inventory bursting at the seams, while our cutting-edge craft bourbon category just gets better and better with some fantastic new releases, as well as a few old favorites at incredible pricing. Finally, a pair of curveballs come your way that will broaden your spirits horizons in unexpected ways.

K&L Wine Merchants

www.klwines.com