Friday night, I -finally- had the pleasure of attending a PDX Whisky tasting, hosted by the incomparable Ian Itschner. I’ve been trying to get out to one of Ian’s tastings since moving to the Portland Metro area in 2007. Yeah, four years of trying, and four years of bad scheduling luck as it would seem I was always booked those weekends Ian would put on a tasting. But no more. I finally made it and am happy to report back a successful gathering.

Because Ian hosts at his home, the atmosphere is far more intimate than a traditional seated tasting, and he goes out of his way to ensure guests are comfortable, and fed. For a paltry $25 donation, Ian provides (what he calls) a light dinner and a 4 bottle tasting course. At the caliber of bottles he is providing, the fee is indeed nominal for an evening out. With a capacity of sixteen guests, I think we hovered around nine or ten Friday evening, just enough to make a round-robin tasting table alive with one conversation, not the multiple sub-conversations which you may see with larger groups.

After some early ‘getting to know you’ time over dinner, we gathered round the outdoor patio table and dug in to the four bottles of the evening:

First up was the Nikka, from the barrel at 51%abv:

• Nose: iodine, but only slightly medicinal, a hint of brine
• Flavour: toasted new wood oak, not much else.
• Finish: hot and bitey. A few drops of water adds a mild floral sweetness into caramel.
• Viscosity: 4
• Boldness: 4
• Length of Story: 3.5
• Personal Taste: B/B+

Next, we moved on to the an Cnoc 16yr:

• Nose: peat, hint of oaked caramel and then into a hint of brine.
• Flavour: young and vegetative, into oaky lumber. Hot, but oddly thin on the mouthfeel.
• Finish: Citrus, then burnt chocolate, almost espresso
• Viscosity: 1
• Boldness: 3
• Length of Story: 4
• Personal Taste: B+

We followed the an Cnoc with the Balvenie 17yr Sherry cask:

• Nose: big caramel, small oak, hint of iodine on the back.
• Flavour: sweetness of the sherry comes through heavily, into toast, combining into Pepsi.
• Finish: Toasted malt and sherry butt, finishes with fairly heavy tannins leaving a dry mouthfeel.
• Viscosity: 4
• Boldness: 3
• Length of Story: 3.5
• Personal Taste: A-

And finished off with the Oban Distiller’s Edition, 1993:

• Nose: Hint of orange citrus and vanilla, chocolate, then raspberry.
• Flavour: wet sherry, not as much of the oak coming through, then into a toasty richness
• Finish: heavily sweet caramel, followed by mild oak tannins, a quintessential Speyside flavour profile though it is a Highland.
• Viscosity: 4.5
• Boldness: 3
• Length of Story: 3
• Personal Taste: A-

While I said ‘finished off’ above, what I really meant was finished the ‘official’ portion of the tasting, as we then moved on to a few other bottles from Ian’s collection after conversation brought certain bottles to the forefront of our attention. We moved on to a German distillery, called Slrys:

Slyrs, 2007 3yr

• Nose: 1950’s locker room, old musty oak. Young mash but with a heavy mash complexity to the nose. Diner pie crust
• Flavour: Smoke and peat. Not much complexity. Hard angles. Very German.
• Finish: Short, structured, technical. (interested to see what their 12yr will produce)
• Viscosity: 2
• Boldness: 4
• Length of Story: 3
• Personal Taste: C+

And then on to the Brora 20yr, cask strength at 58.1%abv

• Nose: Hot, brine.
• Flavour: quite medicinal. peat, then heavy peat followed by brine.
• Finish: Hot. the flavours simply vanish into the heat of the 58.1% alcohol.
• Viscosity: 3
• Boldness: 4
• Length of Story: 3
• Personal Taste: C+ (I didn’t bother cutting at this point, likely would be into a ‘B’ range when cut)

By this point, I scribbled in my tasting notebook: “palate gone”, indicating that the ability to pick out any sense of refinement in my tasting notes wasn’t going to happen from this point forward… which is probably a good thing as we moved on to a comparison of Arbeg’s Supernova, and Bruichladdich’s Octomore. Having imbibed in the Supernova first, I’d have to set the Octomore as less smokey and more to my liking as a decided non-peat head. Though, from this posting over on All things Whisky, I may have to change my tune soon as I am beginning to fall into the descriptors of a peat head. We’ll see how that pans out in the next few years I guess 😉

All said and done, it was a fabulous night out enjoying fines whiskies with some great conversation amongst like minded individuals. We laughed and carried on as though we’d known each other for far longer than the few hours of Friday night. And yes, I am kicking myself for not rearranging my schedules in the past to accommodate this tasting. Oh what I have been missing!