On Friday I
went to a very special tasting. After I finished work I took the train to
travel away from Zurich to a village near St. Gallen. The village is called
Mörschwil and it is like the Swiss epicenter of whisky because two of the
biggest whisky shops are located there. The shop where I went is called House of Single Malts and it is definitely worth a visit. After arriving at the shop
I was greeted by the owners Ivan and Manuela who were really nice hosts. They
introduced me to the other guests (we were only 10) and explained the plan for
the evening because it wasn’t going to
be your everyday kind of tasting, we were about to attend a bottle killing
session (or as it is also called a heelslayer session) and the whole tasting
was designed to be a game.
Before
explaining the rules of the game we were served a first whisky and I
immediately knew that the long train ride was more than worth it. The first
whisky we were served was the stunning Laddie 22 from the Bruichladdich
Distillery. I got really excited because this whisky has sadly been
discontinued and I haven’t had the chance to taste it yet. It was a fantastic
start to the evening and I will give a more in depth review of this in another
article. Meanwhile Ivan and Manuela explained us the rules to the game. There
were around 50 near empty bottles that were lined up in 12 rows. In front of
every row was a card which was Jack, Queen, King or Ace. Every card represented
a certain kind of whisky. The bottles behind the Jacks were the least desirable
most of them being Swiss whiskies. The bottles behind the Queens were some good
whiskies like for example a Glendronach 18 port Finish or a Tobermory 19 by
Cadenhead’s. The bottles behind the Kings were mostly peaty whiskies and the
bottles behind the Aces were some true Jackpot whiskies, most of them being
rather old and rare. There was another deck of cards which would be passed
around the guests. Someone had to draw a card and the whisky would be the
counterpart of the card he drew.
