Durban – Wine can bring complexities to the drinking experience – but there are sometimes opportunities for broadening that outlook to other alcohols.
This weekend’s Whisky Live Showroom at Suncoast Casino promises that prospect.
Returning to Durban in the boutique-style version of the annual Whisky Live Festival, the April 24 and 25 event offers whisky lovers a veritable feast of new finds and old favourites – brands like Bunnahabhain, Scottish Leader and Black Bottle. The Bunnahabhain 25-year-old won a double gold medal at the 2015 San Francisco World Spirits Competition and was awarded Best Islay Single Malt 21 Years and Over at the World Whiskies Awards.
Scottish Leader sells in more than 60 countries, but South Africa was chosen as the first market to receive the new-generation range when the brand was revitalised and an enhanced recipe introduced that upped the single-malt content of Scottish Leader Original.
After a year of extensive global consumer research, the blend of top-malt and grain whiskies now has a warm, honey-sweet and delicately smokey taste, with a silky smooth finish.
The brand also recently introduced the premium blend Scottish Leader Signature as an enticingly complex and layered whisky with a rich, smokey profile.
Black Bottle has shifted back to a recipe closer to its 19th-century roots – and reverted to the original black bottle in which the whisky was sold until World War I, when the green bottle was introduced.
A piece of trivia worth remembering when at the exhibition is that the roving global brand ambassador for several of these award-winning Scotches was one of the first women to become a whisky maker. Kirstie McCallum is an analytical chemist by training and, on earning her doctorate in 1999, planned to become involved in the pharmaceutical industry, but was offered a short-term contract at a grain whisky distillery and found her calling. Today she travels the world educating the trade and whisky enthusiasts on the nuances of Scotch and the ability to pair whisky and food.
Tickets to the Whisky Live event cost R170.
The Mercury