The Spectator whisky tasting

2:18pm

Highland Park 12 years old
Despite the distillery being established in 1798, this was the first proprietary bottling of Highland Park as a single malt and was released in 1979. It remains the most popular expression of Highland Park and is smooth and balanced with a rich, full flavour and gentle smoky finish.

The 12 years old displays a honey sweetness followed by fruit – maybe pineapple, apple or pear. On the palate it is drying and leaves a gentle smoky feeling. The succulent layers of aromatic character come from the tradition of turning malt by hand. Highland...

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High society

Jeremy Clarke 2:09pm

At the Scotch Malt Whisky Society they refuse to deal with anything less than single-cask, cask-strength, non chill-filtered, uncoloured whisky. They are fundamentalists. To further the sacred cause of presenting their co-religionists with top-notch Scotch, each cask (yielding about 250 bottles) is selected with meticulous care. The society does its own bottling and labelling. No vulgar distillery brand names sully the labels. There’s a coded number and a paragraph of tasting notes and that’s it. A panel of society members meets monthly to compose these notes. The notes are undogmatic. Members are expected to worship their own God in their...

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The Quaich and its keepers

Alexander McCall Smith 1:57pm

I have always been of the view that the most interesting and enjoyable ancient societies are those that have not really been around for very long. Really old orders tend to become rather fusty and set in their ways – can it be much fun being a Knight of Malta, which traces its origins back to the crusades? Hardly, I would have thought. Whereas the Society of the Keepers of the Quaich, which was founded as long ago as the late 1980s, is tremendous fun, and full of ancient ritual, going back at least decades.

The idea of the...

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Keeping it real

Sir Les Patterson 1:40pm

I’ve been a top shelf drinker ever since the Australian tax payer, in his wisdom, began to pick up the tab for whatever I decided to put in my mouth. Some of these oral delights would probably surprise the odd fuddy-duddy, but no one’s likely to begrudge me the occasional gargle with a fine old dram of Scottish chardonnay, as I affectionately call whisky.

I’m not too fussy about brands and I’ve always reckoned there was too much b*llsh*t talked about grog.

Fine wines are supposed to put us in touch with the soil and the seasons, and...

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