May 1: Drammers Los Angeles with Duncan Taylor's Global Sales Manager Peter Currie...

Fellow Drammers!

We're excited to welcome back Peter Currie, the Global Sales Manager for Duncan Taylor, as part of his broader role at Shand Import LLC. For social distancing purposes, the event will take place outside and a smaller group. A huge thank you to Kat for hosting us in her backyard pool area (for those of you interested in coming, message us for the address). Between the bottles our club is buying and the bottles Peter is bringing us, we’ve got a fantastic lineup, it’ll be at least 10 expressions by the time we get to the event, but here’s what we’ve got so far…

• Duncan Taylor 22yo Tormore, distilled 1995, bottled 2018. This is likely the first time we’ve included Tormore Distillery in a Drammers Club lineup, which is fun. They were built in 1960, marking the first new distillery built in Scotland in the 20th century, and expanded in 1972 to eight stills and today they’re owned by Pernod Ricard. Fairly hard to come by a bottle released by the distillery, making Duncan Taylor’s releases of them all the more appreciated. 52% abv.

• Duncan Taylor Glen Garioch 7yo. Likely most of our members are already famiiar with Glen Garioch, which we’re a huge fan of. This whisky was distilled in 2011 and bottled 2018, at 52.4% abv.

• Duncan Taylor Islay Malt 1997. This is a fun one from our friends at K&L. Per their website: An interesting story here, teaspooned Ardbeg at unbelievably cheap prices. These stocks come from the period just after Glenmorangie PLC took over the distillery and were "homeopathically" blended with one of Ardbeg's neighbors down the road, presumably Laphroaig, before going into barrel for over two decades. An astonishingly reasonable price considering the quality of the stocks, aided by the obfuscated source and the lack of tariff on blended malt. Expect all that gorgeous Islay peat mellowed and rounded with tons of sweet and savory qualities on the palate. The 19 year old non-cask strength small batch was double this price and while of course this is "not" Ardbeg, the huge majority (99.99999%) of this cask comes from that special distillery at the end of the road on the south shore of Islay. This is cask number #9876916. It was distilled entirely in November, 1997 and in June of 2018. 53.4% abv

• The Octave 20yo “The Huntly'“, Single Cask, Blended Malt Scotch, 52.6% abv

• The Octave 9yo Bunnahabhain. We’ve of course done a number of events with the team at Bunnahabhain, so we’ll skip the 101 and simply say we’re huge fans of this fantastic single malt scotch. Distilled in 2008, 52.4% abv.

• Glasgow Distillery Annual Release. This is another fun one — the name draws on the historically important distillery of the same name (which started back in 1770 apparently). This modern reincarnation is fairly recent, opening in 2014, becoming the first Single Malt Whisky Distillery in Glasgow for over 100 years. According to their website, “The Glasgow Distillery Company is re-establishing the metropolitan Scotch Malt Whisky tradition alongside the great whisky regions and bringing Glasgow Malt Whisky back to life.” Will be fun to give this distillery a try!

• Glasgow Distillery Peated. A second look at this new distillery per above! Matured in virgin oak, finished in PX sherry casks. 46% abv.

• Ardgowan Clydebuilt Coppersmith. This is another fascinating one — Ardgowan Distillery hasn’t been built yet, so they’re sourcing and blending whisky in the meantime. Per their website: At Ardgowan Distillery we have ambitious plans to build a wonderful new distillery and visitor centre on the Ardgowan Estate near Inverkip, west of Glasgow. Our vision is to produce a flagship seven year old lowland single malt with a maritime influence – a whisky like no other. Our plans are already well advanced. The distillery design is complete and we are securing the final investment required to make our dream a reality. It will then be a year or two until we produce our first spirit, followed by a few years maturing in sherry casks before it will become a Scotch whisky of quality and character. Great whisky takes patience. While we wait, we have asked our Master Whisky Maker Max McFarlane (who lives just a mile from the distillery site) to source some of the finest casks of whisky he can find in order to create his own series of whiskies under the ‘Clydebuilt’ label. The first of these whiskies – Coppersmith – is available now. 48% abv

• Black Bull Kyloe. This one is a blended scotch. According to their materials, it features Speyside malt whiskies matured in a blend of refill bourbon and sherry casks, but with a bourbon slant, blended together with aged grain, and bottled at a punchy 50% abv, According to their website, the brand has a history dating back to 1864. Per their website: George Willsher was a man who didn’t conform to the norm. He did things differently. He took risks and wasn’t afraid to go against those who told him things wouldn’t work. When he conjured the idea for Black Bull in his blending room at his grocery and spirits shop in Dundee in 1864, he came up with a concept. That concept was for a high strength, high malt content blend that was bold and different. The formula that he created was for 50 percent (%) of the blend to be made up of single malt whisky, for 50 percent (%) of the blend to be made up of single grain whisky and for the bottling strength to be 100 (US) proof (50% abv). Whilst all the others were trying to conform to a certain style, George Willsher did things his own way, and today we stick by that philosophy. We are proud to say we are still independently owned which gives us the freedom to keep a fresh approach and to offer something different.

• (and we’ll have at least one more TBD, likely another in The Octave series)

That’s our lineup, we hope you can join us! We’ll also order in a few pizzas to make sure nobody’s drinking on an empty stomach, as usual.

• $40/person for Drammers Observers

• $50/person for Drammers Members