Home or Away

 

The full line up

I hosted September's tasting and for a theme I chose 'Home or Away' - four whiskies either fully matured or finished in a second drink, paired for the occasion with an example of that other drink. Yes, that's eight drinks on a school night.

Wire Works and friends

To start with we had, unusually, a whisky we'd had before. The Wire Works Necessarily Evil impressed us during last year's tasting of English drams. Finished in casks which previously held stout made by Derbyshire neighbours Thornbridge, I thought it would be interesting to try the whisky again in tandem with a drop of the beer.

The whisky was the 2023 version at 51.3% bought for £67 direct from the distillery (it might be a touch cheaper if you shop around). Nice and rich, it's got a bit of coffee and sweetness about it. I was curious if any of those notes were accentuated by having the thick, treacly stout at the same time.

The original spirit is lightly peated and some thought the stout brought that out a little. But the strong, stout flavours of martime, chocolate and liqourice really ploughed through most of the subtleties. The stout, aged in bourbon barrels, is 13% and is £13 for a 375ml bottle. We got four so there was enough to go round.

Deanston with marsala

For our second whisky we went to Deanston, one of the club's favourite distilleries which we've had often over the years. It's widely known as a pioneer of organic production. As part of a range of interesting finishes lately is an expression finished in marsala casks.

Marsala has a sad reputation as cooking wine useful for not much more than boozing up your tiramisu. But that wasn't always so. British importers searching for a new port or sherry happened upon this Sicilian fortified wine in the late 18th century, and once it became Lord Nelson's favourite drink it was this and not rum which the elite officers of the Royal Navy were drinking as they took on Napoleon.

A glut of poor quality produce meant marsala lost its lustre over the years, meaning it has gradually moved from the spirits shelf to the store cupboard. There are some bottlings available made the more traditional, high-quality way, though. We had the Cantine Pellegrino Reserva 2000, barrel aged for more than 20 years. 

The Deanston was a 15-year-old, which only spent a little time in the ex-marsala casks at the end, but still long enough to pick up plenty of honey and sweetness. It's 55.2% and we got it from the distillery for £95, but again it might be a little less elsewhere. The marsala again had that honey about it, dried fruit too like apricots, although it was a bit too sweet for some. It's 19% and is £36 for a 750ml bottle.

Penderyn / carcavelos

After a half-time break and a chance to refill our beer glasses downstairs at the Britons Protection - eight drinks not enough for all of us, evidently - we moved onto not one but two old favourites.

Penderyn, the Welsh distillery, is one of the club's most frequently tasted whiskies. And an enduring independent bottler is the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Put them together and you get the SMWS bottling Cava and Raspberry Liqueur Jelly, a six-year-old finished in first-fill barriques which previously held carcavelos.

This was a new one on everyone in the club, which was reason enough to try it. Carcavelos is a Portuguese drink, essentially a form of light port made not in Porto, but in an area to the west of Lisbon. Once quite a thriving area for production, most of it has been eaten up by urbanisation leaving just one producer remaining, itself a joint venture backed by the local council and the Portuguese Ministry of Agriculture. The wine making area in question is just 60 acres, and we had an example of the only commercially available bottling you can get, the Villa Oeiras.

This was great stuff all round. While we enjoyed the whisky, it was the carcavelos which was the night's surprise hit. Nuts, marzipan, caramel and butterscotch. Several members were straight onto their phones to pick up a bottle. We paid £25 apiece for two half-sized bottles, while the Penderyn, all of 60.2%, was £73 (for SMWS members).

Ledaig / Bourdeaux

The final pairing involved a bottle I picked up on a holiday to Mull a couple of years back. Ledaig is the original name of the Tobermory distillery and is still the brand they used for their peated expressions. I tried some in the shop there and ended up walking out with a bottle: a 10-year-old, 2020 bottling fully matured in Bourdeaux red wine casks. I was also £110 lighter, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

For something to stand up to not only that but also the plethora of other booze we'd knocked back by this stage, club member Nic of the brilliant Reserve Wines in Didsbury recommended the Chateau Picoron Le Bon Nobel. A small independent vineyard, it names all its bottlings as palindromes, which Nic accurately felt was probably about as much information as needed to be imparted at that stage of the evening.

The Ledaig was superb, the wine we enjoyed too, even though it was perhaps on a bit of a hiding to nothing at that point of the night. Some felt they'd be glad to drink it again but perhaps not quite at the the £25 price tag.

That brought us to the dram of the night voting. Amidst trying to host the tasting I've realised I didn't actually note down the scores on the doors, but pairing three - the Penderyn and carcavelos - was the overwhelming winner. An unforgettable triumph for Wales and Portugal!

Thanks to all club members who made this another sold out tasting, and to everyone at the Britons for hosting us once again.