Tasting Whisky at the Kilderkin

On a Thursday evening last month, I was on my way to taste the latest beer release at the Brewdog brewpub. Passing by the Cadenhead whisky shop, I spied a notice for a whisky tasting that evening. By the time I got to the pub, it was so thick with the standard crowd of students, hipsters and beer freaks that you couldn’t get within shouting distance of the bar. I 180’d it back past the whisky shop, down to the Kilderkin pub, sliding into a booth just in time to hear a short bald guy deliver his witty commentary on the whisky in his glass. A few tastings later, I am now a semi-“regular”.

 Since we started having spirits industry meetings on Thursdays at school, I haven’t been able to attend the tasting for a few weeks, so I was glad they scheduled the latest rendition for a Friday. The place was packed with the usual mix of regulars and tourists, though a bit livelier than usual. Heading into the weekend, everyone had downed a few more pints than usual, and the atmosphere was amped up to the level usually not attained until three or four whiskies into the evening. I sat at a table with the other usual suspects; Willy (a business prof and obsessive collector of whisky), Johann the Mad Swede (no explanation necessary), a couple other regulars I hadn’t met before, plus a Finn in town on a “working holiday”.

The format for each tasting is thus: 1) Taste whisky. Discuss. 2) Our whisky MC, Mark (the short bald guy) asks everyone for general comments, how old they think the whisky is, what the alcohol content is, and what they’d pay for it. 3) The bottle is reveled and Mark gives some background on the whisky and distillery. More discussion ensues. 4) Repeat.

 Being the gracious whisky ambassador I am, I supplied Mark with a bottle of OYO Whiskey from the homestead that the wife had helpfully transported on her last trip. In addition to this, the tasting also included a 50 year old North British single grain, along with three other mystery whiskies.
 The general structure of each tasting is P/O/U/R/S: peaty, old, unusual, rare, and sherry cask. Most grain (corn, wheat, anything other than barley) whisky is used for blends, so the North British ticked the boxes for both rare and old, and the OYO filled the “unusual “slot.

The other three whiskies turned out to be an 18 year old Burnside, a surprising 3 year old Bladnoch, and Arbeg Uigeadail. That last one is Gaelic, pronounced Oog-a-dal, named after the water source for the distillery. If in doubt when ordering a whisky, it’s best to just point and say, “That one”, lest you misspeak and accidentally call the bartender’s mother a mule. I’ve made a similar mistake before when ordering a Bunnahabhain (that’s Boon-na-ha-vin); I may have accidentally implied the barman fornicates with barn animals, but I can’t be sure.

 The Burnside is actually a Balvenie with a “teaspoon” of Glenfiddich vatted in, or just enough for the bottler to sell it as something else. I like Balvenie (honey, sherry, raisons, bit o’ leather), and this one played true to form. The Bladnoch was so spicy I originally thought it was a rye. Really complex for such a young whippersnapper. The Arbeg I’d tasted before; a big smoky, briny, meaty, flavor bomb. Nice if you like that sort of thing (I do).

The nearly universal winner on the evening was the North British. Older whiskies can tend to turn musty or overly woody, but this was still very zesty and fresh. I guessed it to be much younger, and was surprised when the regulars said it was over 40 years old (Turns out they’d had it before and knew what it was. Bloody cheaters.). This particular bottle was never made available to the public, but similar bottlings sell for around £ 130. So not a bad return on the 20 quid I paid for the tasting.

Oddly, the OYO turned out to be the major divisive point of the evening. It received about a third “likes”, a third “dislike”, and a third “meh”. A couple of the regulars thought it was “weird” and “chemically”, but my table thought it was really nice, and a somewhat sloppy Scott the Scot thanked me for bringing it. I got to explain a bit about the whiskey and distillery, somewhat less wittily than Mark usually does, and I may have mistakenly said the wheat was malted. Apparently the job of whisky ringmaster is not as easy as it looks.

Octoberfest in Scotland? Ja!

Due to popular demand (OK, Andrew Cornell told me to do it), the wutchadrinkin blog has been resurrected on the shores of bonny Scotland in the ole town of Edinburgh. To the uninitiated, I have relocated to the UK to study the dark arts of brewing and distilling via Heriot Watt’s BSc program. Whilst my coursework thus far consists largely of studying the minutiae of molecular biology , the city provides a veritable smorgasbord of opportunities to taste spirits that are unavailable to anyone in the US. Yay me.

I had intended on writing my first post on the Stockbridge Tap’s excellent Ale Festival a few weeks ago, but conspired to lose my tasting notes on the beers I tasted. Hazard of the job, I suppose. The Tap being the fine establishment it is, rest assured I’ll return soon to give you the lowdown.

The pub I will write about was, and is, one of my favorite establishments in the city. There are ale pubs, and whisky pubs, but rarely do you find a place that is excellent at delivering both. The Bow Bar may not have the whisky menu it once had (still over 200 different malts mind you), but it still delivers drams (that’d be a drink to the rest of us) in the preferred 350 ml pours instead of the stingy 250 ml served at most places. And the beers are excellent.

Despite being tucked away on Bow Street just down from Edinburgh Castle, the Bow Bar remains a haven for locals and those seeking out exceptional booze. The small space is consistently packed after work hours and weekends, so expect to wait by the bar if you want a seat, but it’s worth it. Consistent with the best traditional British pubs, there are no TV’s, no music blaring, just great bevvies (beverages) and conversation.

I make regular stops to the Bow, but the occasion for my recent visit was decidedly un-Scottish. Octoberfest is upon us, and Scots are as likely to use any occasion to hoist a pint as Americans are. I really love American takes on German beers (Columbus Brewing Company’s Summerfest and Bock spring to mind, as well as Barley’s Octoberfest), so I was excited to see how brewers in the UK interpreted the style. The Bow had seven different UK beers on cask, and the same number of kegs from Germany, as well as a number of different bottles they’d brought in to celebrate the occasion. Prost!

 I’d always heard ordering a “half pint” was a custom reserved for the lassies and wee old men, but apparently that goes out the door for special events such as this, much to the exasperation of the bartenders. I, of course, drank full (manly) pints, though I opted to stay away from the big two pint steins they were offering. You actually had to put a deposit down on the glass, and If I’m going to make that kind of investment in a beer, it better be served by a sturdy haus-frau wearing lederhosen accompanied by wurst (sorry that’s all the German words I know).

First brew up, the wittily named Smokey and the Band Aid from Buxton Brewing in Derbyshire. Rauchbier is a smoky style of dark German beer, typically using beech wood to smoke the malt. Phenols, the compounds that we associate with smoky flavors, vary in character from roasted meat to bonfires to burning tires to band aids, thus the name of the beer. It lived up to its name, but like a lot of smoked beers I’ve tasted, those smoky flavors fade into the background with time and the roasty malt shines through. If you’ve ever had a peaty whisky, you’re used to that medicinal flavor, but newbies might find it a slap in the face. Not the most complex smoked beer I’ve tasted, but everyone seemed intrigued, and it was selling like hot cakes. Try out the excellent Cinder Bock from Sammy Adams if you’d like to try something similar.

I didn’t think anything could wipe my palate clean after that, but the Island Hopping Spalt from Highland Brewery on Orkney proved me wrong. It’s a pale ale dry hopped with German Spalt hops. If you don’t care for the big piney, citrusy American take on Pale ales/IPA’s, British IPA’s are typically more malty, earthy and floral. This rendition was grapefruity to start, but finished spicy and dry on the German hops. Not a “German” beer per se, but well balanced and highly recommended.



Lastly I tasted Little Valley’s Octoberfest from Yorkshire. Not as overtly malty as a lot of American versions, but with a touch of caramel sweetness, this one finished dry and herbal on the hops; a nice finish to the evening. Given the German beer will keep flowing at the Bow until next Sunday, I suspect I’ll be back for a pint or two before all’s said and done. Hard study makes a man thirsty.