It’s probably worth dipping my oar in with a quick report at this stage – on April 1st 2010 WhiskySquad held its first tasting session, and it’s safe to say that everyone had a great time.
We were lucky to have the expert tasting tutelage of Darren The Whisky Guy to guide our exploration of the world of whisky – and as a super rare treat, we tasted our way through 5 different single cask whiskies!
Keeping a blind-tasting format, Darren (along with helpful interjections from Andy & myself, and the odd non-helpful interjection from myself) talked us through many of the aspects of whisky production and maturation, and described why certain tastes might come up in a particular barrel.
Encouraging us to come up with descriptions of smells & flavours that evoked a memory personally, it wasn’t long before there were murmurs of “sticky toffee pudding”, “the cherry out of a Manhattan”, and “smell a bit like a Hoover that’s gone wrong” – along with some more usual descriptors like “spicy apple”, “biscuity”, “lemon”, and soforth.
The key point in tasting was that it’s not a matter of “getting it right”, or worrying about seeming inferior if you can’t pick out something that someone else has described strongly – the whole point of Whisky Squad is to have a go at tasting these things and finding out what you like & don’t like whilst in the company of a relaxed & friendly group of people.
Following the session all appeared glad that it was a Bank Holiday Friday, and many of us continued toasting the success of our first event late into the night…
So, there we have it – bring on Whisky Squads #2, #3, #4, and… well, you get the idea.
