Whisk(e)y at Wilfred's, the rye edition...

Wednesday saw the second installment of Whisky at Wilfred's - our monthly get together to taste a few out there whiskeys and match them with some equally interesting beers.

And what a night!

With Brendan Moylan 'Skyped in' as our very entertaining guest (more on that later), we tasted 3 of his beers. It was a fairly reserved start with the Irish red, then we stepped it up to the Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale, and iced the cake with the massive Barleywine.

Along the way of course were the whiskeys... for these, in keeping with the American-ness of the beers, we tasted three of the rye variety whilst Russell filled us in on a brief history of American whiskey. We went for Moylans own rye whiskey, followed by an immature whiskey from Peter Bignell of Belgrove in Tasmania and then to go with the Barleywine we went for a big New York rye from Hudson Whiskey called Manhatten Rye.

The beers were great, the whiskey was fantastic, but it was the 'entertainment' that really made the night. you see it was 3am in California where our guest was situated. So it was great of Brendan to drag himself out of bed for a chat. It was also great of him to make it his first point of business to ask how many beers we had all had, just so as to be sure as to how much catching up he had to do, and then set about said catching up immediately. As it turned out, he caught up alright. Easily. And then sailed right past all of us.

Whilst extolling the virtues of drinking beer, drinking whiskey, and enjoying the squeak and the pop that is the sound of a cork being plucked from a whiskey bottle, Brendan gave us some great insight into the brewing scene in the US, the rise of  'craft' spirits, the patience required to make a quality whiskey.

And when he ran out of beer and had to get up and go to the fridge, he showed us that when you're a rockstar brewer/distiller, you simply don't have to wear pants to a live Skype session.

Next Whisky at Wilfred's in on October 24th where we'll be turning Japanese for the night. Book Here

See you there.