There are many things that are synonymous with Scotland, such as tartan, haggis and the Loch Ness Monster, but none carry more credence with the Scots themselves than "whisky"
We are proud as a nation that you can go anywhere in the world and ask for "a scotch" you will then receive a single malt from one of Scotland's many distilleries accompanied by a long discussion about which one to choose, usually driven by the bar persons own favourite, and then when they discover that your from Scotland an equally long discussion about what your favourite is.
This gives the Scots a warm feeling, and not just from the whisky, to realise that we are known the world over for something of quality that we can have great pride in, unfortunately this leads to one of our Achilles heels - as a nation we know very little about our National Drink! For years, whilst happily drinking whisky we have been put off by the snobbery that surrounds whisky in some quarters, akin to the wine snobbery that abounds, and this leads in to one of our great fears. As Scots we do not like to appear to be pretentious nor do we want to appear to be ignorant, to get round this we stick to "what we like" and never have the opportunity to explore the vast range of different single malt whiskies that are out there.
At the Glasgow Malt Whisky Company we regularly hold whisky tastings all over Scotland and are always surprised with the number of people who attend expecting them to be highbrow events where they are lectured to. At the end of the evening they are always impressed that it was a social event where questions are answered, they have tasted some new whiskies learning where the aromas, flavours, colours etc. come from, and they are in the company of likeminded people. One of the questions we are often asked is "what should you add to your whisky?" - We always answer "good company!" Whether it's a small tasting for 4 to 6 people or a large tasting of 20 plus people whisky tastings are a great way to enhance your own knowledge, an opportunity to ask the questions you have always wanted to but most importantly should be enjoyable social events, after all whisky is the most social of all drinks!
The other great myth about whisky tastings is that they are men only events, as women start to dominate the world of whisky on the production side we are happy to report about 30% of people attending our tastings are female.
At the Glasgow Malt Whisky Company we would definitely suggest that if you want to enhance and expand your knowledge of whisky you should seek out a good whisky tasting either as a small group of friends at a venue of your choice or as part of a larger group at an organised event, you will come away having had a good evening, learned a bit about whisky and be ready for that pretentious barman the next time you ask for a whisky.
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