An evening of many whiskies

On Friday night I went along with Hive account@todayslight to a whisky tasting at The Angel's Share in Hitchin. This is a small bar where we have run a lot of open mic music sessions and I have done some paid gigs as part of Hive account@swing47. The owner Harpreet is a big fan of live music and has lots of acts there. We got a lift there from Hive account@purplesinger who joined us for the evening.

The bar is situated in an old pedestrian arcade near the town square. There is a car park at the end where some people have had issues with being issued with fines even though they had paid, so you need to be careful to read the signs.

It turned out that it was just the two of us having the tasting session this time. Harpreet had selected some whiskies with careful consideration of the order.

The whiskies were from:

• Dalwhinnie is a Speyside distillery that has been around for over a century. We had a 15 year old.
• Macallan is also on Speyside and has been around for a similar time. I know some of their malts go for crazy money. Harpreet has a bottle of 40 year old that would cost you a lot for a glass. We just had the 12 year old that will be more reasonable
• Glenfiddich is one of the major whisky brands, but they still do some great single malts. I know my dad used to drink it and I have had a bottle recently. This was another 15 year old.
• Jura have been on Jura for 200 years, but the distillery was revived in the 60s. We had the 10 year old.
• Finlaggan are also on Islay and are a relatively new distillery.

I am no expert on whisky, but I can tell you that these were all distinctly different. I actually liked them all. I will not give tasting notes, but you can look up what the experts say.

As we sat there we had live music from these two guys. They did a lot of songs ranging from pop to folk and I think some were originals. Some people were sitting in the outside area that is under cover and they put up those curtains to keep it a bit cosier.

When we got to the last glass the food was brought out. Harpreet and his wife make authentic Indian food. I had the veggie one and Hive account@todayslight had mutton. Hive account@purplesinger had not been planning to meat, but they brought her a small plate. It was after 9:30 by then, so I was hungry. It had some spice to it, but not overwhelmingly. It went well with the whisky. Harpreet suggested adding some water and said it could make it taste stronger. I think he was right.

Hive account@todayslight had a couple more glasses and I had one too (Talisker) to round off the evening. I was not actually feeling too drunk, but these were just single measures. The whole package was £35 plus any additional drinks. I think that is reasonable given what a good Scotch will cost you at a bar plus we had personal attention and guidance. I slept pretty well that night and did not have a hangover in the morning.

Harpreet has something special with this bar. Hitchin has plenty of noisy bars where people go to get drunk before hitting the clubs, but The Angel's share is somewhere you can just chill out whilst enjoying quality drinks. The live music is a nice bonus.

One of these days I need to visit some distilleries. We do plan to tour more of Scotland some time. This is a nice local option to try some different whiskies with expert advice.