Ok so I am a few years late getting started on this but better late than never.
A few years ago a group of friends started a scotch club. It wasn't planned as such but rather it grew out of a common interest in good scotch whisky, or "whiskey" for the uninitiated.
I will start by sharing my story about how I first learned to appreciate good scotch. Flash back April 1994... it was a dark and drizzly night... wait. That's another story! It was actually a lovely afternoon on my first trip to the UK. Previously my experience with scotch was much like most folks. A few years prior someone poured me a glass of Chivas and referred to it as "really good scotch". I tasted it and screwed up my face, shook my head like a dog who had just been bathed and told a straight out lie, "mmmmm good". Meanwhile thinking surely this was a practical joke, someone took rubbing alcohol and strained it through a compost pile.
Back to England. I had arrived earlier in the day and had been without sleep maybe 20 hours and very jet lagged. We arrived at the farm belonging to my friend's uncle who upon our arrive said, "Let's go to the pub shall we?" So we through the fields, sure to close the gates as to not let the livestock escape and ended up at a the Black Horse Pub in Dry Drayton UK. We ordered a pint and the uncle asked if we wanted a dram of whisky. When he found out I had not yet learned to appreciate scotch I think he took it as a mission to initiate me, sensing my susceptibility from being jet lagged and vulnerable. Not wanting to be rude I accepted his offer of a tasting. He asked Allan the pub keeper to pour a few different whiskies for me to try. I wish I knew which scotches I tried that night. He explained that some were peaty and some were not. Some were smokey, some briny, some spicy, some flowery etc...
I drank everything placed before me that evening and slept like a baby. My friends and I spent the next week or so traveling around England to places such as Bath, Salisbury, London, Portsmouth among others and sampling a whisky a various pubs along the way. Including a pub next to the B&B we stayed at between Salisbury and Stone Henge. I swear the grass stains were the result of tumbling down a hill!!!!!
So a week later we end up back at the uncle's farm. The uncle took us out to another pub for some fish and chips then back to the farm for a nightcap. He poured us all a scotch and I quite enjoyed it thinking that I would enjoy another. So I reached for the bottle he conveniently left right in front of me and proceeded to pour myself another dram. Despite my bad etiquette the uncle took great satisfaction in this and had a look on his face of "mission accomplished".
There was no turning back I was now a scotch lover.
My friends and I began buying and trying various scotches. We found that our city had a scotch club who met a few times a year at a local pub and thought we would try it out. The first night we went I believe the price was $50. For that we got to sample 5 scotches and some finger foods. Of the whiskies on offer, 3 were regular, easy to find malts, one was a high end whisky and one we had never even heard of.
As we continued to attend the prices went up and the food got better but the selection of whiskies became less impressive. We began talking talking and thought for the price we pay for this we could each buy a pretty nice bottle and make our own food and still have the rest of the bottle to take home with us. From there we began building our collections and refining our tastes.
So that's how it began. Now we get together a few times a year. We are a small group and people have come and gone but we have a good time talking about the whiskies as we taste them. We share the stories of our travels where we of course look for whiskies we can't find at home. And we have some great food along the way.
We are not an official club because we don't want rules. We just want to get together once in a while and share our common interest in the precious nectar make by the scots! Last time we got together someone suggested that perhaps we should be recording the scotches we were sampling and I thought how better to do that than to write a blog?
In this blog I intend to share some or our samplings, post some pictures, perhaps share a few stories acceptable for publishing and maybe even post some recipes for the meals we prepare.
I chose the name Upper Windsor's Dram and a Half Scotch Society for a few reasons. The "Upper Windsor Scotch Society" is overly snobbish enough to make it seem like we are not... we are not snobs but we will admit to being geeks (at least when it comes to scotch). The "Dram and a Half" bit comes from the approximate measure of each tasting. According to Wikipedia a liquid dram is approximately a teaspoon. So our tastings end up being about a teaspoon and a half. It may not seem like much but after 12-15 samples in an evening it adds up and if they were full one ounce samples we wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a good highland scotch and the rain water flowing through the gutter we were laying in.
Sláinte
