Jan. 12: Starward Australian Whiskey with Founder David Vitale...

Fellow Drammers!

On January 12th, starting at 8pm Eastern / 5pm Pacific, we’re delighted to welcome back David Vitale, the founder of Starward Australian whisky, based in Melbourne, Australia. We last welcomed David back in May of 2020 for World Whisky Day, where he presented one expression, and we immediately knew we wanted to bring him back for a deeper dive. David is famous for saying things like he’s “making whisky for the dinner table, not the fireplace” and even that he’s doing everything he can to NOT be scotch, ha. But that’s very refreshing actually, and his commitment to making a whisky that reflects where it’s from has resulted in something truly unique. As he says, “this isn’t the outback, this isn’t the beach, this is Melbourne”, and central to that is the craft drinks and foodie culture that Melbourne is known for. Importantly, this includes being able to draw on the country’s extensive wine production, so that his whiskies are predominantly matured in ex-Australian red wine casks (and sometimes fortified wine casks). The results are delicious, and our club was proud to select a private barrel of our own, which has just arrived. Our barrel “tasting committee” included Bob Brown in Las Vegas, Bino Gopal in Los Angeles, Sean Crain in Indianapolis, and Matt Lurin in Long Island, and it wasn’t an easy choice, but we settled on cask #3329, which combines their trademark red fruits, cedar and vanilla bean notes with some notes of chocolatey goodness! We of course had it bottled at cask strength, which came out to 55.5% abv. We did this barrel pick in conjunction with our friends at Astor Wines & Spirits, who are our retail partner for this barrel pick. We loved the sample of the barrel they settled on this year (matured in a much larger cask), and their barrel pick from last year is also fantastic and one of the few other Starward single barrels available in the US, and so on the 12th we’ll be tasting those as well, along with Starward’s fantastic core-range releases.

Here’s what we’ll be tasting on January 12th:

• Two Fold (made from wheat and malted barley)

• Nova, Single Malt Australian Whisky, matured in ex-Australian red wine casks,

• Solera, matured in ex-Australian fortified wine casks

• Our new Drammers-exclusive barrel pick! Single Cask #3329, aged 3 years in an American oak fresh red wine barrique from the Barossa Valley.

• the Astor wines barrel pick from 2019

• [Note: the other single barrel pick we’d initially hope to include didn’t end up being available in time, so we included a bonus mezcal pour instead]

We hope you can join us!

• $25/person for Drammers Members

• $40/person for Drammers Observers