Whisky Squad #63 – 6th June – Better The Devil?

Berry Brothers & Rudd’s own Basingstoke-based superstar Mr Rocky Lancer takes us through some of their exquisite independently bottled whiskies, lining them up next to official distillery bottlings, giving us a chance to examine similarities and differences.

Whisky Squad #64 – 20th June – What’s it got to do with a Plasticene Parrot?

Our resident dramologist Mr Joel Eastman looks at the idea of “distillery polymorphism” – distilleries that produce multiple styles of spirit using the same equipment.  Perhaps it’ll open a discussion about what regionality means in a whisky?  Who knows?  It’ll be interesting, anyway!

Bookings for these sessions open Friday May 24th at 3pm.

For other info, have a look at our booking policy.

Good luck, and hope to see you in June!

Whisky Squad #61 – May 2nd – Gin Squad

Another session in our series of scrutinizing other spirits – by very popular demand we’ve turned the spotlight on gin, and have enlisted the services of Gin Monkey to take us through it!

Whisky Squad #62 – May 16th – Wodge of Worldcraft

Though we’ve had several sessions involving world whisky (i.e. not Scotch), it’s a landscape that gets richer by the moment: so much so that one industry figure passionately believed they deserve a dedicated awards category, rather than being lumped in with “Rest Of World”.  Dom Roskrow leads us through whiskies from the winning distilleries of the 2012 Wizards of Whisky Awards.

Bookings for these tastings open at 1:30pm on Friday April 19th.

Between 1:30pm and Midnight on Friday, you may book for one or the other of the sessions.  After that, you’re welcome to book for either/both.  Thanks.

Whisky Squad #58 – The Whisky Squad 3rd Birthday Three-Way (April 4th)

Billy, Joel and Jason will attempt to sway the group to vote for them as they present a couple of their favourite whiskies each, in an X-Factor style throwdown. Complete with tapdancing.  Probably.  Last year there was jazz and seashore noises. This year, whatever happens, we can promise lovely whisky.

Whisky Squad #59 – Field Trip: Tunbridge Wells (Royal) (April 13th)

We visit the inner sanctum of whisky retailer & purveyor of fine whisky products – Master of Malt – at their premises in Royal Tunbridge Wells.

Whisky Squad #60 – “Reverse Notes” (April 18th)

Just for something a bit different, we thought it might be fun to take other peoples’ tasting notes and see if we can match them up against a brace of blind-tasted whiskies.  There’s probably a board game or gameshow analogy here, but given that X-Factor was the most current TV show I could think of, it’s clear I’m not the expert in this field.

When bookings open, please only book one or the other of #58 or #60 – if there’s any spaces still available as of midnight, then you can book for the other one. #59 is a Saturday afternoon, so that’s different – go for it!

We’ve got another three lovely tastings organised for your enjoyment and edification – feast thine eyes:

Thurs 7 Mar : Whisky Squad #55 – Mr T.T. Lee presents…

Billy Abbott expands on a favourite topic of his: the tasty, high quality, and often surprising realm of Taiwanese whisky.

Thurs 21 Mar : Whisky Squad #56 – Deep in Darkest Soho

Isabel Graham-Yooll has kindly offered to make Whisky Squad’s first acquaintance with London’s first specialist whisky shop – Milroy’s of Soho.

Sat 30 Mar : Whisky Squad #57 – Who’d build a distillery in Battersea?

Darren Rook – former regular Whisky Squad fixture, and visionary – is very excited to introduce us to his new project: The London Distillery Company.

Bookings for Whisky Squad 55, 56 and 57 will open at 1pm on Thursday February 21st.

Please – in order to give people more opportunity to attend a session, we’re asking that you only book one or the other of sessions 55 or 56 on Thursday.  As of Friday it’s open season though.

Apologies for the weirdness during today’s booking frenzy.  We’ve just moved the website across to a new hosting platform in order to solve some of the problems people were having during bookings.

The good news is that the move appears to have solved the problem of the website buckling under the load of everyone rushing to try to get spots.  Unfortunately a couple of hiccups manifested at the end of the process when all the spots had sold out but the site was still reporting one or two places left on each tasting.

We’ll look into that and try to get it resolved, but in the meantime thanks for your patience and understanding.

Jason, Billy & Joel

Whisky Squad #53 – Rivers of Speyside

The Speyside region’s so named for its river, the Spey.  There’s a bit more to it than that though.  There’s certainly more going on in the way of rivers, and that means more water sources for whisky to be distilled from.

Whisky Squad #54 – Changing some sub-Bourbon attitudes

We haven’t had an American whiskey session since July 2010, so by massive popular demand Joel and Jason have tightened up the straps on their thinking hats and assembled this (hopefully) delightful tasting escapade.

The February sessions both open for booking at 5pm on January 24th.

Whisky Squad #51 – The Brown Spectrum (vol. 3)

A tasting at Berry Brothers and Rudd led by Robert Whitehead?! Practically no advertising required, really…

Whisky Squad #52 – Old and New

Billy Abbott leads us through a consideration of the effects of age.  On whisky, that is.

The January sessions open for booking at midday on December 23rd.

Whisky Squad #49: Rum Squad - 7:30pm Thursday December 6th at The Gunmakers.

We’ll be taking one of our evening detours away from whisky and dipping into the murky and turbulent world of rum*, guided by the inimitable Stef Holt – who’s going to learn us a thing or two about what can be done with a bit of sugar, heat, and motivation.

* note: rum’s probably not murky or turbulent – they were just the first two adjectives I could think of.

Whisky Squad #50: Whisky Surprise - 7:30pm Thursday December 20th at The Red Lion, Crown Passage

Last tasting of the year has always been the “bring a whisky you’d like to share” night, and based on the roaring success & variety of the last two it seemed silly not to follow suit.  A varied, fairly unstructured night guaranteed.

December tastings open for bookings Nov 22nd 10:30pm Australian Central Daylight Time, because Jason’s on holiday in Adelaide and he’s the one opening the bookings up. Hopefully that makes sense.

And, finally, it’s not strictly relevant but thought we’d share anyway – nice little interview about Whisky Squad has turned up on the wildly popular Whisky Marketplace TV podcast.  Which is nice.  Have a look: www.whiskymarketplace.co.uk/podcasts/007

So, the schedule looks like this:

Leading off on Nov 1st we have our very own Aussie Joel Eastman with a tasting that keeps up certain antipodean stereotypes:

Whisky Squad 47: The Extreme Whisky Tasting

Our mid-month tasting on the 15th focuses our topical lens on the often misunderstood & sometimes maligned whisky category of grain whisky.  Phil Storry will be helping us understand more about just how much depth & delicacy can come from this industrially-produced spirit:

Whisky Squad 48: The Storry of Grain

And finally, with all proceeds being donated to the Movember charity, Darren Rook and Andrew MacLeod-Smith will be delighting us on the 29th with:

The Movember 2012 Tasting

 Fingers on buzzers…

Bookings for November open at 7:30pm on Wednesday October 17th.

Taking Whisky Squad back to its roots of bringing together a selection of great whiskies with a possibly unexpected justification, Rob Whitehead from Berry Brothers & Rudd will be blowing minds in October with:

Whisky Squad #45 – Thursday October 4th – “More Whisky”

And to follow that, Billy Abbott will attempt to show us a thing or two about the sherry business, and help understand what types of sherry there are and how those might influence whiskies whose casks they’re aged in:

Whisky Squad #46 – Tuesday October 16th – “The Rain in Spain”