Without knowing how good the food is, the price is a bit high. The Celebrate the Macallan tasting event I went to in DC was free, though they overbooked and we didn’t get a chance to make it into the actual tasting. The food was OK and they gave us tickets to the next night’s Celebrate event (and glasses of the Macallan 18!), which was more than enough of a compensation.

I looked online and couldn’t find any reviews, just event listings for every Morton’s steakhouse location, but at first glance it seems like a lukewarm deal.

We weren’t worried until one of the staff walked to the group in front of us and warned that the building only held 200 and they were around 220. Yikes. We didn’t travel nearly an hour just to turn around and go back!

The Outer Room

As we waited in the next line to get into the presentation, we discovered that we were the first group to be denied entry. When we peeked inside, we saw that the other room they were in was packed to the gills. Even if we were let in, it wouldn’t have made for an all too pleasant experience.

We stayed in the outer room where very light h’orderves were served and were treated to samples of the Macallan 18, a treat we certainly accepted as a nice consolation prize. All in all, we still had a good time. They offered to put us on the VIP list for another event this week, which simply meant we were given priority to get in, but we didn’t think we’d make the trip a second time.

In the future, I hope Macallan fixes their RSVP system so that they don’t have this problem but they handled the circumstances quite well.

Not sure which day I’ll be going, leaning towards Wednesday, but I wish there was more information online about what happens during these celebrations. I’m thinking it might be like the tasting I experienced at the Macallan distillery?

$2000 A Bottle!

The Glenlivet Cellar Collection is separate from their “Core Range” of the 12 Year, 15 Year French Oak, Nadurra 16, 18 Year, Archive 21, and XXV; and includes the 1959 Cask Strength, 1964 Cask Strength, 1967, French Oak Finish, American Oak Finish, and 1972 Cask Strength. It is the 1964 Cask Strength that gets the go ahead this year.

Is it worth it? The Glenlivet thinks so… here’s why:

BOTTLED at cask strength with no chill-filtration, the character of this spirit is uncompromised.

AGED for 40 years, each of the 14 casks in this batch was hand-selected by The Glenlivet’s legendary Master Distiller Emeritus Jim Cryle.

FEWER THAN 300 of these individually-numbered bottles remain in the United States.

AWARDED the Gold Medal in The International Spirits Challenge, the 1964 vintage makes an outstanding addition to every serious whisky collector’s cabinet.

So, who is going to get one of the three hundred bottles and when are you inviting me over?

So, the roster was:

• Jura 18
• Laphroiag 10 & a quarter casks version
• Glenmorangie 10
• Chivas Regal 18 (our only blend)
• Macallan 15
• Highland Park 12

The Jura 18 was a bottle I picked up coming back from England last Thanksgiving and I was eager to try it because it wasn’t available here in the United States. The Isle of Jura 18 Year Old is a 40% abv scotch and the only scotch from that island. My memory of the Jura is that it’s sweet and very soft, no doubt a product of its age, and it definitely captures the mood Jura tries to invoke, which is a celebration of the island life.

The Isle of Jura itself is 16 miles off the coast of Scotland, near Islay, and measures only 30 miles long by 7 miles wide, a population of only 185. The main settlement on Jura is a village known as Craighouse where they distill Isle of Jura. What’s most interesting is that there is no ferry connection to mainland Scotland, travel must be done through Islay, though that connection, or its heavy peat, doesn’t come through in the whiskey!

The Chivas Regal 18 was the only blend of the bunch and headquartered in Speyside. My novice palate had trouble with the Chivas Regal 18 because the spiciness tripped up the fruity flavors, having both really threw me for a loop. I could definitely taste both but I couldn’t get past the spiciness to really enjoy the fruit (I love spicy food) and spiciness isn’t something I typically taste in scotch, further confusing me a little.

A little bit of history, Chivas Regal is produced in the oldest working distillery in the Highlands of Scotland, the Strathisla Distillery.

Those were some notes I had from our Scotch Night. With each night, I’m slowly developing a better palate and a better sense of the scotches that I enjoy. In prior scotch nights, I discovered I enjoyed peatiness and smokiness in moderation (Laphroaig and Lagavulin!) but liked the fruitier and more vanilla-y scotches for longer stretches.

Oh, one other thing we did during scotch night, besides eat and drink, was watch The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly… which was a lot longer than we thought it was.

Here are a few tips for Scotch Night:

• Research: Bone up on the tasting notes for the whiskeys you’re going to try. It’s good to get a general idea of what to expect (no, it’s not about impressing your friends, it’s about getting maximum enjoyment) and what you may or may not like.
• Pour a little at first: If you’ve never had something, don’t go pouring yourself a full glass. Give yourself a little more than a few sips. Enough that you can get a nose of it but not enough that you regret having poured so much if you don’t like it. You can always pour yourself more if you discover you love it.
• Good company can overcome bad whiskey: It’s all about who you invite. Invite people you enjoy hanging out with because good company can always overcome bad whiskey (it can’t overcome terrible whiskey though, unless they’re awesome friends). That’s why I always have fond memories of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
• Try something new: If you can, try to be the guy who brings the whiskey no one else can pronounce. The Glenlivet is great but you can get that anywhere, try getting yourself something you can have fun trying to say.
• Take notes: Whiskeys will come in all shapes, sizes, and names; you will forget what you enjoyed unless you write it down. Write down notes for the flavors you smelled and tasted, the color you saw, and anything else worth noting. You won’t be able to remember what was what by the end of the night. At a bare minimum, scratch down the ones you enjoyed so you can buy them later.
• Have fun! Most importantly, have fun!

Tonight a few friends of mine will be getting together to eat some good food, drink some good scotch, and watch The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly with Clint Eastwood. We saw Gran Torino last weekend so we thought we’d follow that up with some Eastwood classics!