Unlocking the secrets of WhiskyFest
Enjoying and (over-) indulging with hundreds of whiskies
Photos courtesy of WhiskyFest
Evan Cattanach offered this defense of sobriety during his tasting seminar on the Classic Malts: You don’t drink whisky, you sip it. But at Whiskyfest 2011, where 1900 attendees paid $135 a ticket for a chance at 275-plus whiskies in three hours, it’s safe to say no one was really listening. That’s the beauty and the difficulty at WhiskyFest—there are so many things to try that any attempt to pace yourself feels like wasted time. This is how I ended up, for the third year in a row, documenting my slow descent into slurred speech while taking notes into a voice recorder.
It’s no secret to anyone that Cattanach’s an essential part of the WhiskyFest experience. He’s a walking caricature—a 75-year-old, kilt-and-medal-wearing Scot who’s spent the past five decades producing scotch in more than a dozen distilleries. He lays it on thick, chalking up one of his sons to a hard-learned lesson on the slogan “drink responsibly,” and telling crude jokes about why Scots wear kilts (because sheep can hear zippers). Most important, though, he’s always got a great bottle hidden at the Classic Malts booth. You just have to ask (nicely). This year he pulled out a limited edition, 20-year Auchroisk, and threw in a half bottle-cap of water. It’s a complex, almost dessert-like pour worth cradling for awhile.
One strategy I adopted early on was to seek out the longest lines during the VIP hour, when the oldest and most expensive batches are available. This led to a pour or Yamazaki 1984, which retails for around $600 a bottle and was hyped by several people I talked to as one of the best things on offer. It delivered—absolutely delicious, warm and spicy, carrying me through the next long line at Bowmore, which proved to be a bust. The 25-year bottles “never arrived.” About 40 minutes into VIP hour, this sent a wave of distress through the line as news of other empty bottles spread, including The Glenrothes 1975. Panic!
Around 6:30, the doors open to the full force of WhiskyFest, and I headed over to Koval Distillery, Ravenswood’s baby micro-distillery that debuted at WhiskyFest three years ago. It’s matured admirably since then, pouring nine different whiskies this year—three whites, which pack so much flavor from the grains they’re pulled from (rye, oat, millet), and their new, darker brothers. The darker varieties have been in the barrel for just two years, but have soaked up enough of the wood to really stand apart from the whites. (We tasted them back in January.)
With a palate almost completely numbed by an hour and a half of whisky, I took a break from the floor and opted for the Classic Malts tasting seminar, a tour of single-malt Scotch whiskies from different regions that give completely different flavors. Cattanach blew through the glasses and likened them to meals—Dalwhinnie is a breakfast whisky and Cragganmore an after-dinner drink. For Talisker, which boasts enough peat to make the entire room stink like a bonfire (that’s a compliment), he had us rub it between our palms, getting us to smell the whisky without the alcohol from cupped hands: silly, but entirely effective. We ended with Lagavulin, which Cattanach says moves from “fruity to medicinal to sea to earth to smoke and back again.” Not a bad way to end the evening; I called it quits before WhiskyFest did me in. According to my digital recorder, I ended the night in high spirits, and narrowly avoided falling down after trying to stand on one leg. Why I did this is anyone’s guess, one of those mysteries that dies with WhiskyFest 2011.
