As usual, this guitar has a story. It wasn't meant to be here, and it might be the very last Single Malt guitar we can make.

A customer in the USA placed an order for a Goodfellow guitar made from the "Whisky timbers", and I did warn him that the sizes available might not work out. And I was right, the sides and soundboard were fine, but the back has to be made from the flat "head" of the oak cask.  We only get one, perhaps two suitable pieces from one barrel, and we need at least five pieces for a guitar back. Mandolins are going to be ok, but I don’t think I'll have time to find wood big enough for more guitars.  Even if I do, the wood needs much more time to dry and stabilise than "conventional" choices.

Just twice over the last twenty years or so, we've managed to make a bigger guitar from these timbers, one of those now lives in San Francisco, but there certainly won't be any more of those.

Back to my story. Having put the initial effort in, it made sense to finish what we had started and complete the only possible guitar - an Ariel, the  guitar that started the whole idea. There have been two such guitars sold second hand recently, and both have reached quite impressive prices. That's very gratifying to see, as I've had rather a lot of push back from certain areas regarding the Whisky idea, even though I’ve seen other makers take it up since we first tried it around 1995.      

We've made two significant changes over the decades. Originally the soundboards were Oregon Pine washback vessels from Talisker Distillery, with wonderful burns and stains from its immersion in hot alcohol for around forty years, but that supply has gone. I replaced it with Sinker Redwood from California,  another timber that has been soaking for a long long time. To keep the looks of the original, we scorch the soundboard  a little, using a big old blowlamp, this idea isn’t as far away from traditional instrument making as you might think.  

One of the joys of making these guitars was the smell when sanding the soundboards, that can't happen now, but we still get a wonderful aroma when we bend the sides. I tell myself that the water we use to wet them actually becomes Whisky and we try to be careful when we drive home. There is an upside to the lack of Pine - the Redwood produces a warmer sound which counteracts the tight character of the small body. The other change I've made is the fingerboard. Originally it was Oak from the Whisky casks, which was lovely and in keeping with the concept, but otherwise not ideal . We now use Ebony, and the whole guitar has no compromises at all, it's all music.

So here we are. 

For sale at £6,600. There's not likely to be another chance any time soon. - SOLD