Yum yum! 5 great choices again from Tim and James, the organisers of DDC’s monthly blind tasting.
Blind tasting is a real eye-opener and certainly levels the playing field when it comes to whisky tasting. I’ve only been coming for a few months, but from very early on I was able to have engaging discussions about what was in my glass with some very experienced whisky drinkers.
My vocabulary has certainly grown since those first couple of tastings, when I struggled to get away from every sample smelling like, well, whisky! Other members have encouraged me to look for sweetness, fruit, peat and smoke, and I’m gradually getting better at picking out different characteristics. Adding a few drops of water can radically alter the profile from one sniff and slurp to the next, and has become a valuable tasting tool.
At the end of the blind tasting the five whiskies are revealed. Novices like me are intrigued to learn the names of the distilleries that have been tickling our tastebuds over the previous hour. For some of the more experienced tasters, there is perhaps a different pleasure: discovering that they really enjoy something new, or finding that something they expected to love isn’t quite as good as they had imagined!
Two stand-out whiskies
Two whiskies stood out for me this month, and both generated plenty of great discussion in our small group. We correctly picked out the styles of both, which for us newbies felt like a great win!
The first was a sherried whisky distilled at Blair Athol and bottled by the fantastic independent bottler Signatory Vintage. Independent bottlers don’t distil their own whisky, but buy whisky, often in casks, which they then mature and bottle themselves.
The first clue for me was the colour, which was on the darker side. A warm chestnut brown, from memory. That immediately made me wonder about sherry maturation. The smell was warm, rich and sweet, with some woodiness to it. I was definitely picking up similarities to other sherried whiskies I’d tried: raisins, dark fruits and Christmas pudding spices. It wasn’t overpowering, but it was definitely there.
The taste brought honey sweetness and dark fruits, with a bit of water opening up both the aroma and the palate. More sweetness and spice came to the fore, along with some of the oak influence.
This is part of Signatory Vintage’s 100 Proof series and is bottled at 57.1% ABV, a strength which isn’t immediately obvious in the drinking experience. It was a great dram, and one I may well look to buy a bottle of. It’s currently for sale at The Whisky Shop in Exeter for around £48.
The other stand-out bottle for me came from Campbeltown, a small whisky region on the Kintyre Peninsula in western Scotland. Several Campbeltown whiskies have been tasted at DDC, including Glen Scotia and Springbank, and Glen Scotia 12 was a favourite of mine a few weeks ago.
This whisky was Campbeltown Loch. Although it is associated with Springbank, it isn’t a single malt: it is a blended malt made using malt whiskies from Campbeltown’s three distilleries — Glengyle, Glen Scotia and Springbank.
The rich aroma had a little smoke and something mineral-like, perhaps that maritime character often associated with Campbeltown, with the maltiness coming through as well. Several of us picked out an oily texture, along with a rugged, earthy character, dried fruit and perhaps a little vanilla, framed by smoky peat.
I really enjoyed the way this whisky connected with a few of us. It wasn’t just the whisky itself, but also the story behind the blend and the fact that we were able to recognise some of those Campbeltown characteristics without knowing what we were drinking. Campbeltown Loch is easily available online for around £40, so this is another bottle that has gone firmly onto my “one to try again” list.
And perhaps that’s what I enjoy most about the DDC tastings. It’s not about getting every whisky “right” or being able to reel off tasting notes like a professional. It’s about slowly learning to recognise what’s in the glass, sharing those observations with other people and occasionally getting a little lightbulb moment when you realise that you’ve actually picked something out correctly. A few months in, I’m still very much learning, but I’m definitely starting to taste whisky rather than just taste whisky.
Words by Toby Bowen-Scott
