Monthly Meetings
The Assessment & Tasting of Two Malts
At each monthly meeting the Club conducts a tasting of two malts scoring each whisky on appearance, nose undiluted, nose diluted, flavor and finish (scoring is out of 100). Additionally any comments are noted and the resulting scores are compared to published scores in related magazines or books to see how close the group is and to observe any differences.
Hosted Tastings
The Club also attends tastings hosted by Agency & Distillery representatives at various venues in Victoria including the Victoria Whisky Festival and tastings by Aberlour, Ardbeg & Glenmorangie, Bruichladdich, Glenfiddich & Balvenie, Bowmore, Springbank and A. Dewar Rattray and Douglas Laing. Club members also lead extra tastings featuring the single malts of the Isle of Arran and Ardmore distillery.
Club members are frequent attendees at out of town tastings such as Whisky Live Paris, whisky evenings at Kensington Wine & Spirits and CSN Wine & Spirits in Calgary, Alberta and are guests at other whisky appreciation clubs locally.
Club members have been on several distillery tours around Scotland visiting many, many distilleries, numerous specialist whisky shops and assorted Scotch whisky related venues including the Scotch Malt Whisky Society in Edinburgh and London.
Additionally, on the first Friday in December the Club hosts a Christmas function, the Heels Dinner & Paper Aero Plane Race, during dinner the heels of the bottles tasted throughout the year are distributed to the Club members. The Dinner normally costs $65 per person and is a very fun evening; members are encouraged to attend with guests and/or spouses.
Cask Purchases
Kilchoman Cask Purchase
Kilchoman (pronounced kilhoman) is the first distillery to be built on Islay in 124 years and in 2006 Club members purchased a cask of this typically Islay style whisky peated to 30 to 50 ppm in an ex-bourbon barrel. The distillery is housed in the Rockside farm close to Port Charlotte and Bruichladdich Distillery.
Please visit www.kilchomandistillery.com for further details on this exciting new Islay distillery.
VSMC 10th Anniversary Ben Nevis Distillery Bottling
To celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Club (1996 to 2006) we ordered a very small run of Ben Nevis 6 Year Old finished in a Port Wine cask from Murray McDavid, the independant bottlers. This unique small run of 132 bottles was specially selected by Jim McEwan and bottled at Bruichladdich Distillery on the Island of Islay in the distillery's bottling hall.
Our warmest thanks to Andrew Gray, Sales Director for ensuring that this special bottling was made possible.
132 bottles from the Ben Nevis Distillery
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Label front and back of Ben Nevis 6 Year Old
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