In a matter of weeks life has changed as we know it, lockdown under coronavirus has impacted us all. In light of the new restrictions the IWAS committee got together to find out how we could bring a little bit of whisky joy into our members homes.
With the April meet to Speyside cancelled, a frantic online discussion started on how we could pull together an online tasting to compensate for the cancelled meet. With the logistics of bottling our own samples and sending them out to members being a bit too much, one member of the committee suggested we contact The Isle of Raasay Distillery to arrange a private tasting for us. Cue our pretend journey to the Isle of Raasay to find out all about their distillery and new whisky.
With six drams being posted to us, all hand drawn from their casks, we all sat down, (shirt and tie for the top half, boxers and y fronts on the bottom, standard webcam meeting attire) logged on and poured ourselves a pre-whisky beer. Alasdair Day, the distillery co-founder, then took us on a journey of their cask samples, dram by dram. For whisky that was a little under three years old we were all taken back by how impressive it was. This goes to show that selecting high quality casks, prolonging the fermentation and providing excellent new make can go a long way to creating a unique, young and vibrant dram. The samples were as follows: • Virgin oak cask • Red wine cask • Rye cask • Peated Virgin • Peated red wine • Peated rye cask
Anyways… that’s enough of me droning on, why not listen to renowned IWAS whisky critics Andy and Rob explain wha they thought!
On closing of the meet IWAS President Fraser announced he had issued an executive order postponing the July 4th Presidential elections indefinitely. This was in light of the coronavirus situation and there’s been widespread reports of 2025 being the most likely rescheduled year for elections. Many of the members believe this to be a grasp of power, given our President’s dislike for democratic processes. Personally, I believe those members should be expelled from the club on the basis of treason towards our Supreme Leader (names have been provided to the Chief Whip to advance disciplinary proceedings).
Thanks to The Isle of Raasay Distillery for organising the drams, to Andy and Rob for sharing their inner most thoughts and to all those key workers from the NHS to the staff at the whisky bottling lines! Stay safe and stay at home! Thanks
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