On Wednesday 24th October, with the nights starting to draw in and the air turning cooler, the London Whisky Club met for another night of whisky fun. The venue was once again The Bottlescrue Bar in St Pauls and the theme was to be “my favourite bottle”. As usual there was no expectation for people to bring more than one bottle or anything super expensive, but as has become normal, people’s generosity got the better of them and we ended up with an absolutely stellar lineup.
We had some unfortunate news just before the meeting was due to start, with Jason having to pull out due to personal reasons. He was missed by us all and we’ll keep fingers crossed that he will be in a position to come to the next meeting in November. We had a group of 9 this month with some new faces alongside the usual suspects. Joining in was Jez, Michael H, Shiv, Conor, myself, Aamir, Sam, Toby and Michael D. Is was great to spend time with everyone and great to meet those new to the group.
We may have hit a new high this month when it came to the whiskies on offer. As the theme left lots of room for manoeuvre, there was lots of variety and people were keen to enthuse about their particular bottles. We started in Asia with a port finished Kavalan, it delivered some wonderful fruity notes and at 40% was a great way to start the evening. Next up came an offering from Conor in the form of a single cask single grain whisky from a closed distillery, followed by the classic that is Glenfarclas 25. We then went back to Asia for some Nikka before tucking into a 19 year old Ben Nevis. We carried on with a local barley from Springbank, a special releases Benrinnes and a younger, but no less tasty, Bordeaux cask Deanston. Ending the line up we had a delicious Glentauchers bottled by the SMWS, the new limited Talisker 8, a Whisky Show special bottling of Ledaig and an independently bottled Laphroaig at approximately 19 years and matured in Madeira casks. I personally enjoyed all the whiskies immensely, my two standout bottles being the Ben Nevis and Talisker 8. The official list can be seen below, as usual a few extra bottles were pulled out as things were wrapping up including a very interesting Berry Brothers blend from 1979 and an excellent Rum from Foursquare:
- Kavalan Port Cask Finish ‘Concertmaster’ 40%
- Cambus Aged 29 Years Cadenheads (Gold Label) 45.4%
- Glenfarclas Aged 25 Years 43%
- Nikka Whisky From The Barrel 51.4%
- Ben Nevis Aged 19 Years Whisky Broker Single Cask 54.2%
- Sprinbank Local Barley Aged 10 Years 57.3%
- Benrinnes Aged 21 Years (2014 Special Releases) 56.9%
- Deanston 2008 Nine Years Old Bordeaux Red Wine Cask 58.7%
- Glentauchers SMWS 63.49 11 Years Old ‘In the Dark of the Abyss’ 60.6%
- Talisker Aged 8 Years (2018 Special Releases) 59.4%
- Ledaig Aged 12 Years (Bottled for The Whisky Show 2018) 58.4%
- Lp8 (Laphroaig) Elements of Islay 53.5%
This will be the club’s final meeting at our current venue, with November’s meeting taking place at The Melody Whisky Bar in Hammersmith. Thanks to The Bottlescrue for being fantastic hosts for the last few months. If you’d like to get involved and come along to a meet-up either next month or over the winter then simply fill out the contact form on this website and we’ll get in touch. Please remember that we’re all there to have a good time and you don’t have to be a whisky expert or bring super expensive bottles to be made extremely welcome.