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Whisky Wonderland Day 1: Masterclasses (SMWS, Cognac, Ardbeg)

Writer's picture: S&PS&P

Good morning everyone!


The big show is this afternoon but here's some info about the masterclasses I did yesterday:


First up SMWS masterclass hosted by Rob & Kelly Carpenter, a whisky power couple that run Scotch Malt Whisky Society Canada.


I love that they did most of the tasting blind. The line up was a 28y Glen Moray, a blended malt aged in double IPA casks, a 12y Macallan, a 7y George Dickel, a 17y Bowmore, and a 10y Lochindaal.


My best guesses were the Glen Moray (I had it pinned as a Glen Moray or a Linkwood, very floral and fruity character). The Dickel I did well. I was thinking Heaven Hill but I caught that they had slipped a bourbon in there right away. The Bowmore I did catch but only after they told me it was islay. It was very faint on the peat but kept some of that beachy tropical Bowmore character.


Unexpectedly the Macallan was my winner of the tasting. I had it pinned down as a Bunna actually with the heftiness and nutty notes. It was very heavy on the nutty and molassy notes which I'm a sucker for. The 28y Glen Moray was close second. I surveyed the attendees and the Mac was a consistent number 1 or 2. Many people loved the Bowmore which I wasn't big on.


The Old Fashioned which is an 11y blended malt aged in IPA cask, really threw me off. It has bitters notes, and orange rind, with a sweet backbone. To the point where I thought doing it blind that it was an actual cocktail they were serving us.





Masterclass number 2 with Igor Kossov from Heads & Tails:


Igor loves throwing curve balls and he had the nerve to show up to a whisky show with 5 Cognacs haha. Not a single person in the audience complained. In fact this is the only tasting that was completely sold out to the point where Mike had to come in and say he didn't want to be checking everyone's tickets. We learned a ton about the subregions of Cognac and to my surprise the only difference between Cognac and Armagnac is actually twice versus once distilled. Very cool. My favorite of this tasting was the Malternative Lot 76 and this was actually unanimous among the dozen people I surveyed from the tasting. On equal footing for me mainly because of it's uniqueness was Igor's own bottling of a Lot 58 Petite Champagne. It has a super musty character that Igor compared to a peated scotch type of flavor. I loved that.





Last but not least Ardbeg tasting with Bry Simpson:


Bry lined up some classics for us: the 10, the Wee Beastie, and then he threw in a couple limited editions with Fermutation and Ardcore, and he finished with an interesting curveball: Uiegeadail bottled in 2017 and then another bottled in 2023. Funny enough the 2023 bottling blew my mind. The 2017 is the classic Oogie I know but I really thought initially that the 2023 bottle must be some kind of crazy single cask. I'll be hunting down a bottle of that batch for sure. It had this delicious walnut backbone that I loved. Fermutation also I thought was very cool and it has an interesting story where the beer was left for 3 weeks to ferment instead of the typical 50 hours because of equipment malfunction. We also got treated to some Ardbeg newmake at the end which was mind blowingly good. I would honestly just buy a bottle of that.




Great start to the show for me :) excited to check out the booths this afternoon. I'll report back in the next few days.


Cheers!

Simon from S&P.

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