So we held our monthly tasting session last night so I’m going to post a quick round up and review of the bottles as well on a separate post. The theme of the evening was Irish whiskey, both pot still and single malt.
The Whiskey Wankers is a group of students from the east coast of Ireland that get together once a month to try some seriously good whiskey. We chose the name based on a not for profit whiskey group that I bartended for in Vancouver called “The Whisky Wisemen” seriously cool guys. Pursuing better knowledge of whiskey while raising money for charity. Check them out http://www.whiskywisemen.com/ . When I returned to Ireland I wanted to continue what a cool idea that was. We thought of stealing the name for ourselves but we realised that a group of twenty something year old students would sound like absolute wankers with a name like that. So we cut out the middle man and here we are today!
The buy in: set amount each month. 40 beans. Cheaper than a night out in Dublin. (fact) WAAAAY more fun than a night out in Dublin. (subjective fact).
I, with the best knowledge in the group, choose the theme of the meetings, set the line up, collect the money, buy the bottles and set up the tasting. I let them know the theme in advance but not the particular bottles. This stops people trying to cheat with the tasting notes (look better in front of the girls a.k.a. “whiskey wenches”…. they didn’t like being called “wankettes”).
SO ramble over…
We began our pot still journey with the infamous Mitchell & Son’s Green and Yellow spot. We continued our journey with one of my favourite pot stills, Redbreast 12 year old and completed the evening with Connemara single malt out of Cooley.
We had a mix of newbies and long time whiskey fans last night and I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised that the outright favourite was Connemara. I thought the pot still spice and its fruity flavours would win over the attendees but as they say like everything with whiskey “it depends”.
My main goal of the evening was to develop the groups awareness of the distinct Irish distilling method and show them exactly what Ireland had to offer. We’re nothing but a group of students in our twenties looking to try something different.
In the end I think it worked quite well. I began with a blind tasting, testing the groups nose and palate without the aids one gets from knowing their drink. Went down quite well and I certainly think that if I employ this method again I have learnt a lot about what I should have put in and things I can leave out. So we all learned a bit!
Over all we got to nerd out on different cask types and discuss different aspects of the production process which was cool. Everyone got very merry. The bottles this morning are hurting as much as our heads.
We laughed, we learned and drank some seriously good whiskey.
Tl:DR: Group of wankers met up and drank really nice irish whiskey.
Ha ha, in an earlier draft version of Whisky Waffle we were Whisky Wank, and even formed a group called the ‘Whisky Appreciation and Nosing Collective’ (think about it!).
Anyway, brilliant article – it sounds like a great night, tasting some quality Irish whiskies, an area in which I am sadly lacking in knowledge (or rather, experience).
Keep on waffling,
Nick