Helensburgh Charity Whisky Tasting

Last night my husband, Mark, and I hosted our first ever joint tasting. It wasn’t our idea. Rather a very good friend of mine had asked us both to host a charity whisky tasting to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support in Helensburgh and we couldn’t really refuse because a) I’ve known her forever and she’s one of my best friends and b) she knows first hand how vital a service Macmillan provides. 
Now, I’m not going to lie - we were both a little nervous about doing a joint tasting. We’ve both done hundreds of tastings over our careers but never together and never to raise money for a cause that was so close to us; Would enough people turn up? Would we be able to pull off a joint tasting without it ending in divorce? Would we make enough money?

Happily, all our fears were unfounded. We had a good turnout of around 60 people - some whisky enthusiasts, some novices and some that didn’t even like whisky but had come along because Rhona asked them to and it was for a good cause - We even managed to convert one of our non-whisky drinking friends!  (Yes, we do have some!) The joint tasting thing seemed to go okay too, at least after the first dram or two, and, between ticket sales and the raffle, we raised a fantastic £1640 for Macmillan. All in all, a pretty successful evening.

​We had a pretty good tasting line up too thanks to Mark’s current employer, Cadenheads, and my previous employers, Springbank and Glenfarclas, who very generously donated all of the whisky for the event.

The evening started off with Campbeltown Loch 21yo, followed by an 11yo Cadenhead’s Balmenach, limited edition Glenfarclas £511.19s.0d, Springbank 10yo, then a Cadenhead’s 1988 Sherry Cask Highland Park and then finished off with a 1984 34yo Caol Ila (also Cadenhead’s). There was no clear favourite with the crowd fairly evenly split on which they preferred. I’d be hard pushed to pick a favourite myself but think it was probably either the HP or the Caol Ila. I’ll certainly be asking Mark to get bottles of both for the house!​

Huge thanks to everyone that provided whisky, raffle prizes and came along to support the event. Who knows, we may even do more joint tastings in the future!