Burns Night: Whisky festival will raise your spirits
Phil Quinn, licencee of The Boat pub, who is staging the first ever whiskey festival in Whittlesey next week with some 100 different malts and blends available
A LANDLORD in Whittlesey has transformed a popular real-ale pub into his very own Scotch corner as he looks to uncork the area’s first-ever whisky festival.
Licensee Phil Quinn, who hails from Edinburgh, launches the week-long celebration at The Boat Inn, in Ramsey Road, Whittlesey, today which will coincide with Burns Night on Wednesday.
Connoisseurs can sample rare single malts and deluxe-blends costing from £2.50 up to £20 per measure, from a bevy of bottles collected by Phil over many years.
Polar explorer Ernest Shackleton’s tipple of choice – Mackinlay’s Rare Old Highland Malt – is a highlight of the festival, which features more than a 100 varieties of whisky.
Cases of Mackinlay were shipped to Antarctica in 1907 and found buried beneath Shackleton’s hut a century after the fateful expedition with Captain Robert Scott to reach the South Pole in 1912.
Whisky-wise Phil hopes his new festival will introduce drinkers to a wider variety of drams than ever before.
He said: “I’m hoping the festival will give people a chance to taste whisky that they wouldn’t normally be able to access.
“The thing is, for a lot of people their first experience is of an ordinary blend, which can put people off for life.
“But there’s such a variety of tastes and aromas available, which depends on the type of casks the whisky is matured in, which in turn alters their flavour.
“Newcomers should start with something easy and get a taste for it – something easy on the palette.
“We run beer festivals here but I’ve never heard of anything like this in the area.
“I go to whisky shows in London and thought it would make a nice change to do something like that around here.
“Hopefully the festival will become an annual thing.”
Phil expects clued-up whisky drinkers to drain his bottles of Glenmorangie highland malts early on and splash out on a glass of his premium blended Johnnie Walker Blue Label, bottles of which have a £160 price tag.
He added: “I’ve also got a Japanese deluxe-blend called Hibiki, which is 17 years old, and a 12-year-old single malt called Yamazaki.
“The oldest whisky on offer is a 25-year-old Glenfarclas malt.”
The Boat Inn’s first whisky festival runs during regular opening hours until January 29, with Scottish music, haggis, neeps and tatties being served to mark Burns Night on January 25.
Scotch, English, Welsh, Irish and Japanese single malts and blends will be served in 25ml measures and tasting notes will be made available.
There is no entry fee and for further information contact Phil on 01733 202488.
FACTFILE: whisky
WEE DRAMS of whisky, the alcoholic spirit made from fermenting grain and aged in wooden casks, has been enjoyed by drinkers for centuries, having spread in Ireland and Scotland in the Middle Ages.
Varieties of grain used by distilleries around the world include barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat and corn.
Single malts use just one malted grain from just one distillery. Bottles are blended from casks produced in different years.
Blended Whisky begins life as a mash of mixed grain and malt and is blended using whiskies from various distilleries to achieve the desired flavour.
Blends can contain up to 40 individual single malt and grain whiskies from various distilleries.
The Irish version (spelt whiskey) is traditionally distilled three times (Scotch is distilled twice) and aged in wooden casks for three or more years.
Japanese whisky mirrors the style of Scotch and the first commercial distillery, Yamazaki, opened near Kyoto in 1924.
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