Single Malt Whisky Tasting Experiences in the USA

A few months ago I was asked by my friend Bob who has joined many of my week long whisky experiences in Scotland, if I would be interested in hosting a series of Scotch whisky tastings in the USA. I had never been to The States before so I jumped at the chance. I dug out my passport, booked my tickets and off I headed to Indiana followed by an extensive tour of the Bourbon distilleries of Kentucky.

I’m hoping to write about the trip over a series of blog posts so watch this space if you would like to read about my tour of many distilleries in Kentucky.

Whisky Tasting Experience for Storied Company in Indianapolis

First up for the series of events was at a great shop in Indianapolis called Storied Company. Storied is a fantastic wine and spirits merchants which is ran by Denis Lynch and Simon O’Grady. Denis and Simon like to stock wines and spirits that have been produced by smaller, independent wineries and distilleries especially those that have an interesting story to tell.

I hosted two sessions at Storied, for around 40 guests in each. The tasting took place with myself and the guests lined up with glasses of whisky ready to taste on a table that ran all around the balcony on the upper floor. Each tasting session lasted around an hour with an hour in between to set up the second event.

The room in Storied was beautifully lit and made for a relaxing ambience for our whisky tasting guests. Being relaxed, our guests asked lots of great and interesting questions which always helps to make a tasting go really well.

The Whisky Set List at Storied Company

Here are the whiskies that our guests enjoyed at the Scotch whisky tasting at Storied Company:

• Elements of Islay LN2 Small Batch Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky. 59.5% from Bruichladdich Distillery, Isle of Islay. Bottled by Elixir Distillers. This was a single Amercan oak barrel which yielded just 216 bottles.
• Elements of Islay BN10 Small Batch Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky. 54.3%abv. Bunnahabhain Distillery, Isle of Islay. Bottled by Elixir Distillers. This was a marriage of 3 American oak hogsheads which yielded a total of 732 bottles.
• Caol Ila 10 year old Islay Single Cask Single Malt Scotch Whisky. 56.4%abv bottled by Inglered. This was a single American oak hogshead which yielded 295 bottles.
• Caol Ila 9 year old Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky bottled by Five Lions. This was an single American oak cask.
• Laphroaig 9 year old Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky. 61.4%abv. Bottled by Single Malts of Scotland (Elixir Distillers). This was a single American oak hogshead.
• Port Askaig 18 year old Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky. 50.8%abv. Bottled by Elixir Distillers. This was a single bourbon barrel filled in 2000 and limited to 250 bottles.

It was a privilege to present such a wonderful flight of rare expressions and all of the guests loved the whiskies and the event itself. It isn’t often I get the chance to talk about whiskies of such limited supply. All of the whiskies were from either single casks or a very small marriage of casks. Everyone went home very happy indeed.

One guest waited until the end of the second session, and after almost all of the other guests had left the room he came to speak to me. He proudly showed me a photo he had on his phone of his bottle of 30 year old Caol Ila single malt whisky which was released in 2015. At the time it was the oldest Caol Ila ever to be bottled by the distillers and I’m very proud to have my name on it.

“I’ve travelled from Alabama to meet you tonight David” the man said to me and I thanked him for coming after he told me about how much he had enjoyed the tasting. My geography of the USA isn’t very good so I checked with google maps how far the drive was that the gentleman and his partner had made, a journey of 700 miles each way!

I’d like to thank Denis and Simon for having me host the tastings at Storied Company and I very much look forward to coming back in the future.

Whisky Tasting for the Muncie Scotch Whisky Society

After the tasting we headed off towards the town of Muncie, Indiana. Bob was keen to give me a proper US diner experience so we had a late night, and well deserved feast it one of his favourite restaurants, Portillo’s, and very good it was too. The perfect way to end the evening!

The following day we would host a whisky tasting for members of the Muncie Scotch Whisky Society. I’ve posted a couple of photos below but more about this in a future blog post.

Contact me!

I host bourbon tastings as well as Scotch whisky events. If you are interested in a whisky (or whiskey!) tasting experience wherever you are, please call me on 07875 405 980 alternatively, please complete the contact form below and I will be back to you as soon as possible.