St Andrew's Day Whisky Tasting

What better way to celebrate St Andrew's Day than by tasting single-cask whisky?

What is a single-cask whisky?  It is the real stuff. Unadulterated. Straight from the still to the wood, to rest for many years. Straight from the wood to the bottle, without filtration, dilution, coloration, or other nasty tinkering. Straight from the bottle to your glass. A unique work of art, unlike any commercial product to be found anywhere, at any price.

Tasting these whiskies is a completely different experience to tasting any "commercial" whisky bought in retail, and a surprising amount of people who claim they "don't like whisky" will in fact realise that it was just because they didn't experience this kind of unique and superior stuff.   

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (tm) buys whole casks from a large number of distilleries, and bottle them themselves. The distilleries however stipulate that they cannot sell it under the distillery name, so all bottles essentially look the same, but they came up with a numbering scheme from which aficionados will be able to determine where the cask came from. You can however only buy from them, if you are a member.   

Among our volunteers we have people who are members of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, whose charter it is to acquire single-cask whiskies from the various distilleries of Scotland, and whose pleasure it is reverently to dispose of them. They also have proposed to arrange for this First Days Whisky Tasting event, - and what other night to select than St Andrew's Day.

We have selected five whiskies, representing a variety of Scottish regions and styles. We will sample a dram of each, with reference to tasting notes produced by the Society. Bread and nibbles form a fine partnership with whisky, and will be provided along with Scottish spring water for dilution of the cask-strength spirit to taste.  (It may surprise you to know that dilution to about 20-30% ABV is strongly recommended.  Neat spirit assaults the palate, inhibiting proper appreciation of the flavour and aroma of the whisky.)