Our Ladies Choice evening moved from Sweden to France, home of the Glann Ar Mor distillery with its peated single malt Kornog.

Pooja Vir joins as our next Whisky Ladies of Mumbai guest whisky reviewer…

Here is what she has to say…

“The last time we drank a Kornog I wanted to take my bra off.”

And this, forever, will remain my first thought each time I drink the (very) peated malt from Breton.

When our favourite Whisky Lady invited me to write a guest post on a whisky I sourced for one of our club’s evenings I warned her it wasn’t going to be about the whisky. She didn’t seem to mind, and so here I am.

My love affair with whisky began when I was 6 months old. Several decades later, over my first ever whisky sour (which I sent back) in a trendy hotel in London’s Shoreditch I began to write a blog called Table for One. It’s a personal diary of sorts, and a record of what I felt when I was out eating and drinking on my own.

More decades later, after a fairly democratic voting process, the Whisky Ladies of Bombay chose 5 bottles for the evening we were hosting the Bombay Malt & Cigar evening. The Kornog Breton Single Malt became my responsibility. A quick call to my bootlegger in London and we were in business.

But I digress… you must want to get back to Breton, and bras.

The bra-extracting whisky that my fellow Whisky Ladies were referring to was the Kornog Taourac’h Trived 10 BC 46% they tasted a few months ago. However, the Kornog Taourac’h Pemved 14 BC 46% we drank tonight was less titillating.

Much to the disappointment of the “gentlemen” we were hosting, no bras came off. And much to the disappointment of the ladies who had experienced a Kornog before, this one was as mild as the gents we were hosting.

Fortunately for me though, I didn’t carry the burden of experience. I had started to fall for this Kornog soon after I saw it for the first time. I loved the font on its label. I loved that it came from France (but wasn’t an Armagnac or a calvados or a pastis). I loved that it was the whisky version of Italy’s slow cooking movement – made with wooden washbacks, slow distillation and maturation by the sea.

So I gave it the benefit of the doubt. I decided to like it and all it had to do in return was deliver a perfect first kiss.

The clever folk will tell you its nose is “smoky and fruity with citrusy peat and notes of marzipan.” That it tastes “medicinal with hints of seaweed, tar and pear.” That the “smoke goes awry and marzipan hits again.” Or as the Whisky Ladies put it: the bras stayed on.

It seemed harsh at first sniff, but so much gentler on the tongue. I flirted enough for the two of us, but it didn’t seem to notice. I put a lot of heart into every conversation, and even though all I got back was monosyllables, it didn’t seem to notice.

Ladies and gentlemen, it would seem that I have been afflicted by a one-sided romance. I say this isn’t about the whisky… but of course it is. For it is unlikely that any other whisky, on any other night, with another group of people would have inspired what it did. It is unlikely that anyone else I loved so much, would reject me as surely as this Kornog did.

The Kornog Taouarc’h Pempved 14 BC is a single-cask bottling, aged in a bourbon cask and bottled in 2014.

Table for One

What else did we sample in our “Ladies Choice” evening for the BMC gentlemen?

• Japan – Akashi Blended Whisky 40% – By Nikoulina Berg
• Sweden – Mackmyra Vinterdröm 46.1% – By Susan Dias
• India – Paul John Single Cask #1844 60.5% – By Paula McGlynn
• France – Kornog Taouarc’h Pempved 14 BC 46% – By Pooja Vir
• Taiwan – Kavalan Solist Sherry Cask S090102020 57.1% – By Shruti Sutawala

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