Whisky Live Cape Town 2010, Day 1

It started one night when everything just worked. The Bald Eagle, The He-Ghanaian and I went to the whisky festival. The Blonde was pregnant and therefore designated driver. We made several discoveries that night and one that would dominate my whisky adventures.

The thing about the whisky festival in Cape Town is how different it is from a wine festival in the same locale. The wine is made nearby and therefore the people manning ⁽¹⁾ the booths are normally from the farms itself. Already employed or may even be the winemaker self. Almost all whisky in the world is manufactured quite some distance from Cape Town so the already employed do not travel here. The whisky companies hire local talent. Booth bunnies⁽²⁾ are probably very intelligent people. Knowledgeable and attractive. Very attractive indeed. I suspect though that the latter is the primary reason for getting hired.

By the end of the evening we had sensory and liver overload. We discovered the joy that is peated whisky. Ardbeg in particular. We knew nothing when we arrived, but learned a lot about whisky tasting our way through the 23 we sampled that night. For a whisky to make an impression that late in the evening it had to be heavily peated. Ardbeg is an obvious whisky. It is love or hate it territory. You cannot be neutral about the taste or smell of Ardbeg. It is hooligan juice. But lovely!

We left the festival with a glass of Caol Ila 12 each and such was the nature of our delight that we tried to take the security guard’s golf cart for a joy ride. But did not succeed.

I’ve returned every year since then and last night was Day 1 of 2010. The products, if I can be as clinical as that, that impressed was Ledaig, a heavily peated one from Tobermore. The Kavalan from Taiwan was very different. Still not sure if I like it or not. What I did like was the 30yr Old Pulteney that Jonathan Miles offered me.

I can now also claim that the suburb of Pretoria I grew up in has a distellry and a brewery. The enigmatic Moritz Kallmeyer of Draymans Brewery now also produces a Highveld Whisky. I suggest you buy a bottle. There is not that much to go round and is good to drink.

Another new pleasure was Makers Mark. Rob Samuels, the 8th generation of distillers presented his story and his whisky. The man has a problem most distillers would like to have. He has more orders than he can fill. With good reason. The stuff is very good indeed. We tasted new make that had an awfull smell to it, but 2yrs in the barrel cured it. A few more and it tasted brilliant. He also gave us an overaged sample to show that just as with red wine, cheese and people, too much age is not a good thing.

On the same note, the disappointment of the show. An 18 yr old Clynelish finished in a sherry cask by an independent bottler. Very different form the normal 14 yr old expression that I like. This is an experiment I hope will not be repeated.

Tonight is whiskys of the world workshop. I’ll tell you how it went in the next edition.



(1) Might not be politically correct, but I’ll get more sexist in a moment
(2) Told you