Wilkommen in unserem neuen Internationalen Nurnberg Whisky-Verkostungsclub!
Why “new”? Well, there exists already a well-established Whisky Club in Nurnberg. And the “international”? This is a clear reflection of our wee group – a mix of nationalities and international orientations – many of whom met via an International social “Meetup” group.
We kicked off our explorations together in July 2023 with a set I had been waiting to open for quite some time! Thinking initially to bring to India, it was a delight to open instead in Deutschland.
Before we began, one guy pulled out a nearly empty bottle of Glen Grant – with the brilliant idea to have a sip of a palate “calibration” dram! Something that he shared he does consistently before sitting down to a tasting – what a great alternative to spitting out the 1st sip!
We then got on with the “main course” with a quartet from Gordon & Macphail’s Discovery series.
- Green (ex-bourbon): Aultmore 10 year 43% – A great place to start, lovely summery dram with enough “oomph!” to be interesting!
- Purple (ex-sherry): Miltonduff 10 year 43% – A beautifully balanced sherry expression
- Purple (ex-sherry): Glenrothes 11 year 43% – Bold, direct and clearly sherry!
- Grey (peat): Caol Ila 13 year 43% – Nuanced sweet peat
Two I already had a fair idea of what to expect from a brief brush in Paris, two were new expressions from familiar distilleries. If you are curious to dive deeper, detailed tasting notes are available in the above links!
Our evening was a mix of experienced whisky explorers and those simply curious to learn more. I thought a couple of “reference points” could help make it easier to spark a creative conversation.
One was a colour chart from the Single Malt Amateur Club (SMAC) from Bangalore and Pune which provided a range of points for judging the whisky colour with a description. Why consider colour? In the case of all four whiskies, we understand they are without “added” colour, hence colour was a helpful way to illustrate the impact of an ex-Sherry cask vs ex-Bourbon cask on the whisky.
Another tool we used was a Tasting Wheel – courtesy of Whic.de (via SWRI). The reaction to some of the descriptions was amusing.
Do you really find “Speck, festiges Fleisch” (bacon, fatty meat) in whisky? How can that be a good thing???
As we wandered through our quartet, we did indeed find several standard whisky aromas and tastes…. including bacon in our peaty Caol Ila!!
We concluded it was a good start and can’t wait to see where we go next!
PS – If you are curious about my sampling of the Miltonduff and Caol Ila from Paris Whisky Live, check this out:
Paris Whisky Live – Gordon + Macphail Discovery Tomatin, Miltonduff, Caol Ila
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