A March Down Memory Lane

This month's line up.

We were asked to suggest drams for this month's Manchester Whisky Club tasting. Or, to be more accurate, we were asked to try to look back into the darkest, fuzziest corners of our teenage minds, to recall the first whiskies we ever tasted. Matthew's plan was to select some different (and, inevitably, higher-quality) drams from some well-known brands we might have long since stopped drinking. To make things a little trickier, we were tasting them blind.

Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Select.

And we started off in America. Perhaps thankfully, not with Southern Comfort (still presumably trying to make 'SoCo' happen), but with a drop of Jack Daniel's. And where better to try it than the Briton's Protection, a pub with always has a wide selection of JD behind the bar and has even brought over its own 'Manchester cask' barrels of the stuff.

We weren't trying that, nor even the bog standard Sour Mash you sneaked out of your parents' booze cupboard when you were 15, but instead the Single Barrel Select, and an expression bottled for the French market. This was reminiscent of Speyside apple, and was, unsurprisingly for a bourbon, "a bit woody". We agreed we wouldn't normally have a JD but, yes, this was pretty nice. It's 47% and costs £63, possibly a bit over the odds all things considered.

BBR bottled Glen Moray 8yo.

The other four whiskies of the evening all came from Scotland, with two of them bottled by our friends at Berry, Bros and Rudd. The first was dram number two, an 8yo Glen Moray (Scottish pedants' corner: it's pronounced 'Murray'). Now, Glen Moray used to be the cheapest single malt you could get in most supermarkets, but it was probably always a bit better than that implied. And this particular bottling certainly went down well.

On the nose, this was all pear drops and green apples, and the taste was perhaps a little stronger than you might expect, although it still had a certain softness about it. For one club member this was "subtle, but it holds its own" while others described it as "quintessentially Speyside". This single cask expression comes in at 46% and is available at £45, good value indeed.

Glenmorangie Signet.

Onto dram number three, and this got mixed reviews on the nose. A bit rubbery, a touch of bubblegum, and soon we had it narrowed down to either Macallan or Glenmorangie. Those who went with the latter turned out to be right, but when Matthew revealed we were drinking a no age statement whisky with some 30yo stuff in it, there was quite a bit of surprise. Nobody really had it pegged for anything of that supposed quality.

The whisky in question was Glenmorangie Signet, 46% again, but setting you back £125. We didn't think this was worth it at all. As someone said: "the problem with this whisky is you can get three very good bottles for the same money," so it's doubtful this will be appearing in any of our kitchen cupboards soon.

Balvenie Doublewood 17yo.

The old yellow label of Balvenie was a familiar sight in supermarket booze aisles, and was presumably also familiar in the early drinking days of at least some club members, as we visited this distillery for dram four.  But we took things up a few notches for what turned out to be their 17yo.

This didn't have too much on the nose, but was very pleasant indeed on the palate. Dried fruit, toffee, banana and Christmas pudding all got a shout, so maybe it would taste a touch better in the depths of winter. But even so, this was highly drinkable and quite warming. At 43% and £93, this was certainly nice, but again, a bit expensive for what was in the bottle.

Another BBR, this one an 18yo Laphroaig.

And so to the end of the evening, and this one got quite a reaction as members took their first sniffs of it, with plenty of 'oohs' and 'aahs'. "You all sound like a bunch of drug addicts," said someone, which was probably fair enough, as everyone recognised the familiar scent of Islay in their nostrils.

This really was very pleasant indeed. There were quite a few suggestions of Lagavulin, but then, nobody could really believe that anyone's first whisky was a Lagavulin. And here I've got to declare an interest. My first whisky was a Laphroaig 10yo (a family thing, as there always seemed to be a bottle in the house, a tradition I somehow seem to have maintained) and this was a Laphroaig too, although something a bit more special. An 18yo from Berry, Bros and Rudd, and clocking in at 55.6%. It was £175, but good luck finding a bottle. It was, almost unanimously, dram of the night.

And that was it for another month. Thanks again to Matthew for selecting some great drams for us to try, and to the Briton's for again being excellent hosts. We've got the club AGM in April and then another tasting as usual at the end of the month. If there's anything we can be sure of, it's that ordering a 'SoCo and lime' still won't be a thing by then.