The Heart Cut

JJ Corry

November's tasting was hosted by Georgie Bell, co-founder of indie bottler The Heart Cut. Under the slogan 'small batches, big personality', Georgie and her husband Fabrizio launched the company in 2023, with the aim of directly collaborating with a wide range of distilleries across the world, to bring one-off single cask and small batch bottlings to the whisky scene. She had half a dozen selections from no fewer than five nations for us to try.

It was off to Ireland first, and whiskey bonding house JJ Corry. We had a blend of four casks together, matured or finished in a range of port and sherry, creating what Georgie had hoped would be "sunshine in a glass."

It was certainly a very easygoing start to the night. Toffee was an early tasting note, followed by citrus, especially lemon peel, then biscuits and apricots. A bit of cut grass as well. It was 48% and you can still get it for £68. As with all the others, it was a 50cl bottle, a choice Georgie told us they had made to help keep the sticker price of their bottles down a bit, and to help spread these small batch spirits out to a broader audience.

Barley

Dram two was the first of what Georgie called a 'house pour' or what will be the start of The Heart Cut's core range. Called Barley, it's an English blended malt made from five distilleries: The English, Cotswolds, White Peak, Adnams and Copper Rivet, the latter the newest on the block from Chatham in Kent. The point of this whisky was to put a focus on the grain, perhaps the unsung hero of whisky production.

This was very distinctive and summery, with a clear taste of strawberries, with a bit of creaminess too it was almost like jam and cream on a scone. There were also spicy notes in here, especially cinnamon. This was 46% and cost £48.

Westland

Next to something smoky and American. Westland in Seattle is among the pioneers of US single malt. They were even able to find a local bog in Washington State to use for their peated expressions, making them real innovators in American whiskey.

This wasn't super smoky, and there were strong hints of topical fruit and a sweetness reminiscent of fruit pastilles. Peanut butter too, as part of a nutty dryness. In fact it went very dry during the aftertaste, almost like cereal. A bit of water smoothed this out though. It was 53% and comes in at £84.

We had a short half-time break to refill our beer and other glasses downstairs at the Seven Oaks, before Georgie returned with another trio for us.

Stork Club

Whisky four took us to Germany and a rye from Stork Club, a new distillery for the club. Something else new: a whisky matured in a so-called 'Napoleon cask' using wood from some very old trees indeed, from a forest on the Franco-German border.

This was weird and great. An interesting mixture of charred flavours and chocolatey sweetness. Someone suggested it was like the slightly burnt ends of a pain chocolat. Others picked out Black Forest gateau, as well as dark chocolate, cloves and cinnamon again. Extremely memorable. £55 if you want to try it for yourself. It's 55% too.

Thomson 1

The last two drams of the evening took us to the other side of the world and New Zealand's Thomson distillery. Georgie promised us a "distinctive New Zealand style" from these, and in the first example we had a whisky fully matured in a fresh pinot noir cask.

It was tough to follow that remarkable rye, but this one brought spiced plum jam, figs and cherries. We also had a few squares of chocolate to go around, and that changed the taste again, making it all sharper. Some felt this was a little spirity, but for others it was delicious. Good for a wintertime drink.

Thomson 2

To finish there was another interesting angle. The sixth whisky was manuka smoked, using the wood native to New Zealand (and arguably better known for its honey) instead of peat.

So, not peaty but smoky. A bit like charred wood and a bonfire, with a taste reminiscent of eucalyptus or menthol. Very smoky on the nose, less so on the palate, but another gorgeous drink all round. It came in at 50.8% and it's £71.

Dram of the night voting, then. And every whisky got at least three votes, always the sign of strength in depth in a tasting. But for the first time ever, we had a three-way tie for first place. Whiskies four, five and six got seven votes apiece. No penalty shoot outs here, just a share of the non-existing spoils between Stork Club and both Thomson drams.

Our thanks to Georgie for a great tasting and for introducing us to some high-quality whiskies, and to all club members and guests for coming along.

English Whisky Special

Another Zoom tasting!

For our September tasting, once again held via Zoom, we had a selection of whiskies from across England to try. It wasn't so long that England didn't produce any whisky at all, but now there are an increasing number of distilleries not only producing the stuff, but putting some impressive bottlings out onto the market, and we had five to try.

Filey Bay

We kicked off the evening with a dram from what is, by geography at least, the closest working whisky distillery to Manchester. It's Filey Bay in North Yorkshire, and we had a bottle of its First Release, which came out towards the end of 2019, once the spirit had passed the three year mark.

It certainly tasted young, with not a lot of wood in it yet, although it was nice and biscuity. The real sages in the group felt this tasted like great quality whisky, although it was obviously still very young and therefore perhaps a bit rough around the edges. It was short-lived on the palate, although quite smooth considering its youth, while others did think it burned a bit. The whisky is all grain to glass on the same site, and we certainly think it's one to watch as it moves up in age in the coming years. This was 46% and £63 when you could get it, although it now goes for upwards of £100 on auction sites.

Cotswolds

Next it was a move much further south, to the Cotswolds in fact, and another inaugural release, from the Cotswolds Distillery. As with Filey Bay, this distillery was established with the help of whisky guru, the late Jim Swan. We felt this had more about it straight away, with a very good nose like a sweet pastry or strudel.

There was a little bit of dryness too, and we felt this was better than some of its English rivals of a similar sort of age, although those who added water felt this killed the whisky a bit. Aged in a mixture of red wine and bourbon casks, this was again 46% and was just £50 when it came out - a bargain! But if you want to buy a bottle now it'll set you back a cool £300. So perhaps best wait for something newer from them.

The English

For our third drink of the evening we visited the oldest of this new breed of English distilleries, the English Whisky Company in Norfolk, which at one time was the first English distillery to bring a whisky to the market in a century. A sign of the age of the distillery is that they are now producing an 11-year-old, which is what we had before us.

We got toasty nuts on the nose, with a little bit of ashtray. Adding water diminished that a bit, and made the drink sweeter. At 56.8% this had a real cask strength feeling to it, which did polarise the club members a bit, with some of our Zoom breakout rooms giving this the thumbs up and others less keen. The finish was a bit short. A single cask whisky, one of 311 bottles matured in a red wine cask, it was £75 when you could get it although it's now sold out.

The Lakes

After a short half-time break, we were on to the fourth whisky and a return to the north of England and The Lakes distillery. Possibly best known for its The One blend, featuring a mixture of whiskies from the four nations of the UK, we had a bottle of its higher end Whiskymaker Reserve No 3.

Spicy, with citrus on the nose, and burnt orange, dark fruits and even cherry. In short, lots going on, with a different sort of taste and some unusual flavours. Very enjoyable, although the nose was perhaps more of a highlight than how it tasted on the palate, yet still a very well balanced drink overall. At 54% and £65, this had a bit of "all the sherries" in it, from Oloroso, PX, cream sherry and then red wine, as if that wasn't enough.

Bimber

To finish off we had something even more special, and it was from one of the hottest names in whisky this year, super trendy London distillery Bimber. This was a bottle of a recent release, an unpeated whisky finished in a peated Islay quarter cask, which sold out of its 1,750 bottles in under an hour.

This whisky was, to quote one member "on another level" to even the very good ones we'd had earlier in the tasting. A lot to it, perhaps with more on the palate than the nose, but it really came at you in layers. Waxy and greasy with a mixture of subtle tastes, that helped it to taste much older than it really is. At auction these bottles will already cost you more than £100. It's 54.1%.

And so it came to our dram of the night voting, and it was the Bimber which came out on top with 10 votes, while the slightly more polarising English Whisky Company bottling picked up 7, while the others also attracted at least one vote each. Bimber certainly one to watch - but then so are all these developing English distilleries.

Thanks to the committee and club members who all took part in another successful tasting. We're counting down the days until we can return to in person tastings at the Britons Protection, but in the meantime, these lockdown specials are continuing to prove hugely successful!

The full line-up