Scotch Whisky Trail Course ends

The spring 2010 season of courses is now over with the final night - and the EXAM!! - of the Scotch Whisky Trail Course last night. I always seem to get a good bunch of guys and gals who are there to enjoy themselves and to pick up a wee bit knowledge about the cratur. The exam scores last night were very good. Taken as a whole, at 73%, they probably had probably the best average score in the 11 years I have been running the course.
The examconsists of 50 multiple choice questions and 3 whiskies tasted blind, with one mark being given for correctly identifying whether the whisky is a blended whisky or a single malt and 5 marks for correctly identifying the brand. The tasting side of it is really just for fun and doesn't count towards the final percentage.
We finished up with a fairly comprehensive tasting of Japanese (and other) whiskies, with samples from Yamazaki, Chichibu, Hanyu, Fuji-Gotemba, Karuizawa, Yoichi & Hakushu, not forgetting Glann ar Mor, Mackmyra, Bakery Hill, Sullivan's Cove & Kilchoman.
Today I have been down to more mundane things - decorating the bathroom. I HATE painting skirting boards! I need a dram now.

23rd July, 2009

Just back from 18 days holiday. Visited the town of Erquy on the north coast of Brittany, what the call "le Cote d'Emeraude". Erquy is a very pleasant wee town with fabulous beaches - acres of sand! It has French, Belgian, Dutch, German and Swiss tourist - and damned few Brits! Good food and friendly locals. We holidayed in the Western Loire two years ago and noticed that the Euro prices had risen quite considerably since 2007. That added to the poor Sterling - Euro exchange rate made for an expensive holiday.
I was even in swimming a few times and the water wasn't too cold.
Visited Glann ar Mor distillery and hour and a half to the north west of Erquy. Here, Jean Donnay and his wife Martine operate the Celtique Whisky Compagnie, a Breton independent bottler, see http://www.celtic-whisky.com. Jean and Patrick, his helper (warehouseman/mashman/stillman/etc.) produce small amounts of spirit from distillery buildings which have the date 1668 carved into the lintel above the door. The first of Glann ar Mor's spirit became whisky at three years old earlier this year and was bottled at 3 years and 4 months old. My tasting note will follow.
Very cute little stills with a production of around a mere 50,000 bottles per annum, distillation is slow, wash still distillation takes 14 hours, spirit still distillation even slower.
Jean Donnay is a driven character, enthused, animated and focussed. A great ambassador for his own product, the stills were made for him in the Charente and are both direct fired - without rummagers.