Just back from the beautiful Isle of Islay http://www.islayinfo.com/
7 friends enjoying a week taste testing single malt whisky, trying to pair up scotch with Havana cigars. It was a tough job but our “CigarGroup” (formerly known as the No More Scots smoking Club) was up to the task 🙂
We managed to get through around 16 different expressions of various brands including Ardbeg,Jura,Bowmore,Laphroaig and others but our favourite was Bruichladdich http://www.bruichladdich.com/ where we enjoyed a private tour and tasting with director of production Jim McEwan.Jim was an absolute star, spending plenty of time chatting with us about his background as well as the distillery and the industry in general. We tried a number of different single malts and were very impressed indeed.
If all goes to plan we will have an excellent vintage Bruichladdich aged in Latour cask that we will make into a cigar malt in the next few months.
Jim kindly let us taste his Bowmore 1994 which was delightful and the CigarGroup ( Gordon, Craig, Chris, Christoph, Zaff, Ron, Tillman, Mitch) are looking forward to stashing a few bottles in due course.
I was very impressed with Jura http://www.juradevelopment.co.uk/web/index.php the Island as well as the whisky.It seems to be the lightest of all the Islays and doesn’t drown out a cigars flavour in the same way as the more peaty scotch does. Jura has some of the most beautiful views I have ever seen
We stayed at Octovullin Farmhouse http://www.scottish-castle-holidays.co.uk/the-isles/octovullin.html and spent the evenings herfing through an extraordinary amount of Punch serie D’Oro no.1, Partagas SP no,2, La Gloria Gloriosos and of course our old favourites: Monte 2’s
Our smoking buddy Tillmann Pretscher who also happens to be rather famous photographer spent the week snapping away so I should be able to get some great photos up on the website in the next few days
If you like a scotch with your cigar as I do check out my website http://www.whisky-cigars.co.uk/ Possible the best range of scotch on the internet.
Back to the London office on Monday and looking forward to a very very busy weeks herfing including the Hunters and Frankau Summer party, the Industry lunch at Lords on Wednesday and no doubt a dinner or two at Boisdale.
Have a smokey weekend
Peaceful puffing
Mitchell