Single Cask Cocktails with SMWS and Scotch Club

Echoing the sold out success of the previous year's collaboration with the Scotch Malt Whisky Society and Shirt Bar's Scotch Club (read about our shenanigans here), we returned for another sell out session pairing three single cask, cask strength whiskies with three different cocktails made with the same whiskies.

This time however, in collaboration with Shirt Bar's talented bar manager Patrick, we came up with a different concept for the pairing. Inspired by the premise of matching food dishes with alcohol, we decided to do the same...but in the form of the cocktails! A liquid food pairing so to speak.

The proceedings was kept fairly informal with everyone getting a short introduction to each whisky by Matt Bailey, the national brand ambassador for the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, before the matching cocktail was brought out in the following order:

1. Cask 41.76 Sunshine in a Glass paired with Lemon Vanilla Sponge (a vanilla twist on the Vieux Carre cocktail)

2. Cask 35.144 Punch with a Punch paired with Black Forest Roulade (a cherry chocolate twist on the Rob Roy cocktail made with the addition of Cherry Heering and Mr Black coffee liqueur)

3. Cask 3.285 Fun on the Beach paired with Hot Salted Nuts (a salted old fashioned served up with burnt rosemary and side of duck fat maple spiced nuts to evoke the experience of walking along a pier on the beach)

Carrying on into the night, most stayed on for more drinks, with Shirt Bar offering 20% off all dark spirits for the evening. As always, it was a great way to experience a spirit in different ways and we like to think that the cocktails highlighted and accentuated different notes in the whisky. We have to say a big thank you to the society for letting us play around with some very expensive cask strength whiskies! And of course, to Shirt Bar for hosting a wonderfully convival evening.

More information on how you can get your hands on society whiskies available here