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.