Charity Whisky Tasting

Earlier this year we were asked if we would hold a Charity Whisky Tasting for the Walking Warriors, a newly formed team in the Relay For Life Aylesbury, a Cancer Research UK Charity.

Last July their newly formed team helped raise £6k during the 24 hour walk around Aylesbury Rugby Club, coming third, out of 33 teams, in the final team standings, and on the day won the Spirit of Relay 2014 team award.

After the event was out of the way it was time for the team to come up with ideas to raise money for Cancer Research UK over the next year (the next Aylesbury Race for Life is scheduled for July 4th 2015). One of the Walking Warriors was a good friend of Dave's and during their time working together, Dave had introduced Steve to whisky, and with his new found early interest in whisky an idea popped into his head.

With a busy schedule at the beginning of the year we settled for Friday 24th April so we could get everything together and thanks to the support from some of our friends in the Scotch whisky world, we managed to arrange a formal six dram line up with raffle and auction prizes, as well as holding back a special something for the finale dram.

The Walking Warriors organised the venue and food with Aylesbury College's Harding's Restaurant, a fully commercial establishment and headed up by a professional team.

All set up and ready to go

It was the first time we had enough glasses to lay out a full compliment for each of the tasters and we'd printed out tasting mats alongside the usual information we'd ordinarily provide. The set-up looked impressive thanks to the team at Harding's Restaurant who'd laid out the tables ready for us.

Tasting mats too!

After the initial drinks, food was served in the adjacent dining area before the tasters took their places and we started our whisky tasting. We had set up for twenty tasters; with both new and established whisky drinkers we hoped we had something to please everyone! 

We had malted barley, new make spirit and a piece of oak stave too!

Whilst we weren't able to cover all of the Scotch Whisky regions we did have an impressive line-up of single malts, and started the tasting with an Auchentoshan 12 representing the Lowland Region. 

Next, we visited two distinctly different Highland single malts from Aberfeldy and Tomatin before another two distinctly different Speyside single malts from Craigellachie and The Glenlivet. Our final whisky of the tasting came from Highland Park representing the Islands while we discussed the other regions.

Favourites were quickly established and additional drams poured while we answered questions. We had a very special finale dram from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, a 25 Year Old Glen Grant, 9.84 Playing 'Sea Battle' in the Garden' which  everybody agreed was the highlight of the evening.

A very special treat to close the tasting

At the end of the tasting we auctioned off all the heels raising additional funds before finishing with a raffle that included bottles of whisky and glasses kindly donated from Glen Moray and Glen Garioch.

The end result? 

£517 raised for Cancer Research UK and a few new whisky converts! If you want to find out more information about the Walking Warriors check out their Relay for Life Team Page where you too can donate!

Whisky related raffle prizes too!

Many thanks to the generosity and support from: Auchentoshan, Aberfeldy, Craigellachie, Glen Garioch, Glen Moray, Gordon & MacPhail, Highland Park, The Glenlivet, The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, and Tomatin

Sláinte! Dave