I always consider myself a cheap drinker when it comes to alcohol. You need not pay much to get me to the happy heavenly wonderland. There are many different ways we appreciate our drinks and the worst I came across was the period I worked in mainland China. Other than forcing me to drink like I’m craving for H2O after 42km marathonrun, they do have those weird drinkingpractices like mixing red wine with lemonade, drinking warm beer, combination of all types of alcohol beverages including Chinese rice wine with super high 52% alcohol level in single session and much more. I puked 5 times in my entire life and 3 were actually within 2 years time in China. This might not sound serious because I managed to avoid from drinking more due to my alcohol emerged indication face (my face will turn as red as ripe tomatoes after the lowest consumption of alcohol). Nevertheless, with this exposure, it did help me to increase my alcohol intake tolerance.
There are so many alcohol types and brands in the market and how well we know about them? Most people don’t really care much but I always find it interesting to know more though I’m not a fan of drinking. I was lucky to get invited to Glenlivet single malt whisky tasting session at HANA RoppongiDesa Sri Hartamas last week and with this invites, I got curious why it is call single malt whisky and what are the differences from the common blended brands we saw most of the time.
To my surprise, I was invited to one of the finest awards winning Whisky tasting event and had the luxuries to sample the entire range of it. Glenlivet Distillery was the first licensed distillery under the new law way back in 1824 at Speyside region, Banffshire next to the river Livet where the whisky is still in made today.And, a single malt whisky means whisky that is distilled by a single distillery using malted barley as the only grain ingredient and of course water and yeast as mixture then matured in oak casks before it’s bottled.No other ingredients are allowed basically by the producing ‘law’.
Glenlivet Lineup
We reached the venue early actually but were having dinner with Cindy two shop lots away. The tasting was already on its 3rd glass by the time we entered HANA because it started a little earlier than scheduled. (7pm is too early for me to drive all the way from Puchong on a weekday and I definitely need to have dinner before consuming any alcohol to make sure I’ll be able to drive home after the event). However, the range of line-ups from pale gold to dark amber still remained untouched on the table reserved for us. Thank you, Eric.
Range from pale golden to dark amber awaited
The setup was professionally done for a single malt whisky tasting with proper usage of glasses and plain water with bread prepared. I came to know single malt whisky is best served in tulip shape glass over straight tumbler type. Tulip shape glass is much better to capture the aroma concentrated on its opening. Furthermore, plain water was arranged rather than the usual ice cube as some claimed ice not only ruined the structure of a malt whisky on the palate, you’ll lose the magnificent fragrance as well.however, towards the end of the nite, i still had mine on the rock. Need a chilling drink in Malaysia.
The Glenlivet has a nice fragrant aroma with a bit sort of woody kind of taste when I nosed it. It tasted slightly sweet at first, with aromatic flavors, quite smooth and warm to the mouth and has a dry and woody pleasant after taste and, not to forget the alcohol burning sensation. I’m not a big whisky drinker so it’s hard for me to offer comparisons, but I thought this is a remarkably smooth and eminently drinkable wee dram. A friend told me later he hated single malt whisky so much because it’s so smooth that you would eventually passout without notice.
Food + Siew Yok = Best
We were served well with assorted Japanese cuisine and the most amazing item served was ‘SiewYok’ (Roasted pork). Cindy, Bangsar-babe, Deep the thirsty blogger (ohh yes he was thirsty), Eric and I, occasionally joined by Aaron, the brand manager, a table of five + one emptied a bottle of 12 year Glenlivet. With this knowledge and experience, I think I’ll venture more into ‘maltland’ when there’s any opportunity. I am not sure if it’s a good or a bad obsession. I’m lucky to still be able to blog about this now. The only complain I have been the venue, too crowed and noisy. Can’t really hear whatever massages that tried to pass over to us.
Deep who always with drink, BangsarBabe of course on food, Eric happy with his dinner and TeyCindy enjoying
So I see finally you are into fine single malt whisky! Haha… yeah I find the Glenlivet a little peaty too. Not exactly my favourite but it's still good.
Good times²
August 12, 2009 at 10:31 am