Whisky Boys – Back to School, Week 2
The Scotch Whisky Trail Certificate 2011 – City of Glasgow College (week 2)
Guess what Jim and Scott were a couple of minutes late this week also,so we expect our lecturer to soon be giving us lines, 500 x “must turn up on time”.
We had another well tutored and informative time, and everyone soon got into the flow of things with questions and answers flying in all directions.
Tonight’s topic was Grain Whisky and the Development of a blended Whisky. Until you get right into the facts and figures of Grain and Blended Whisky, most people will be unaware how important these are, not only to the Whisky drinker, the distillers and the blenders, but also to the treasury.
Now not many people would realise that no matter how good a grand single malt is, less than 8% of all bottled sales are actually single malts. The Whisky Boys are doing their best to increase the consumption of many a fine single malt, and we need all the help we can get.
Week 2 was again another learning period and then at the end we had the tasting.
This weeks tasting were all grains and blends, the first was a New Spirit from North British, now not many students tasted this liquid but few gave it a wee sniff. On a lighter note John Lamond, our lecturer picked up the glass of new spirit, thinking it was his glass of water and took a good swig, not to his liking as he coughed and spluttered.
The tastings we had this evening were :-
Cameron Brig – Grain Whisky, mild and bitter, much better with a dash of h2o.
High Commissioner – Blended Whisky, soft with caramel notes.
Cutty Sark – Blended Whisky, sweet & malty with a wee bit of spicyness.
Dewar’s, White Label – Blended Whisky, vanilla ice cream, quite soft and dry.
Black Bottle – Blended Whisky, full of Islay influences, certainly Jim’s favourite blended dram.
Chivas Regal 12 Year Old – Blended Whisky, second only to Black Bottle, a lovely every day dram, toffee with lemon and lime hints.
Well those tastings ended another great night at the Glasgow Metropolitan College with John D. Lamond.
John gave us the full course schedule together with the up and coming tastings, and a few beauties are in there, so looking forward to Week 3.