With the 18th Annual Northeast Florida Scottish Games & Festival this Saturday in Green Cove Springs, what could further you education better than a whisky tasting on Friday at the Hilltop Restaurant in Orange Park.
We’re not talking Cutty Sark® or Canadian Mist® but real, single-malt Scotch.
‘Scotch’ is for whisky & tape
Scotch is scotch, right?
Wrongo!
Although perfectly acceptable spirits, the aforementioned Cutty Sark® and Canadian Mist® are blends.
Single-malt is bottled from one barrel. It’s smoky, thick, sweet and, yep, it burns like fire.
That’s why you sip it.
Scottish distillers have worked for generations to find the right wood for the barrels and the right mix of sheep dung and peat to give their whisky just the right flavor.
Read it again – the color and flavor of Scotch come from burning sheep dung and peat onto the inside of a wooden barrel.
The crystal-clear whisky then lives in the barrel for 10, 12, maybe 18 years and ages.
Then it’s ready to drink.
Meet your spirit guide
Your Scotch professor this year is local Todd Hull, current president and one of the founding members of the Iron Mountain Whisky Club in Jacksonville.
Named for Iron Mountain near Lake Wales, the highest elevation in the state of Florida, the club takes its motto Invictus maneo (“I remain unvanquished.”) from clan Armstrong.
Hull is of Scottish descent and brings these credentials to the tasting:
- Member of the Scotch Whisky Society
- An FOL (Friend of Laphroaig) and currently renting his one square foot of good Scottish soil to them.
- A Diurach. (Jura’s whisky club)
- Belongs to Balvenie’s Warehouse 24 and have been in the warehouse and
- bottled his own scotch.
- Has visited “Whiski” in Edinburgh, who posted his tasting notes on their website at the same time they were named Edinburgh Whisky Bar of the Year,
- Has attended whisky tasting and visited distilleries and breweries around the world to discuss whisky and its particulars.
Clearly there’s nothing like a good stiff belt to take the edge off and clarify the mind.
Bottoms up.
GJE
Scotch Whisky Tasting
- Fri., Feb. 22, 6 p.m. Tasting begins at 6:30 p.m.
- Admission: $25 plus fees.
- The Hilltop Restaurant
- 2030 Well Road Orange Park, Fla. 32073
- Phone: 904-272-5999
- E-Mail: info@neflgames.com
neflgames.com/Whisky_Tasting.html
-30-
©2013 All rights reserved.
OFFICIAL BIO: K Truitt is a second-generation, native Floridian born in Jacksonville. Truitt worked in public higher education for 25 years, most recently in Texas, is a successful grant writer, knows newspaper publishing, printing and graphic design and wants to work in the public sector. Contact: kt.4examiner@yahoo.com
Comments