Yesterday, Jim from Wemyss hosted a Whisky tasting at our Victoria Park Whisky Corner. Jim, the Chief Financial Officer at Wemyss, is in New Zealand on holiday his mother and his wife, who’s a Kiwi. He flew up from Napier for the afternoon just to visit us, dressed in his best tartan.
As an independent bottler of whisky, Wemyss (pronounced ‘weems’) is a family owned business based in Scotland and has a long association with whisky dating back to the turn of the 19th Century when John Haig built his first distillery on Wemyss land. Wemyss approach to whisky aims to select only the very highest quality of malt whiskies and in doing so make them more accessible and understandable by using the tasting and aromas of individual whiskies to identify each bottling. With that in mind, we tried blended whiskies named ‘The Hive’, ‘The Spice King’ and single malt named ‘Eastern Promise’ from Speyside. Later in the evening, we opened ‘Lemon Zest’.
The tasting wasn’t all whisky; we also tasted Darnley’s View Gin. Wemyss’ sister brand gin is named after the first meeting of Mary Queen of Scots and her future husband Lord Darnley at Wemyss Castle in the 1565, 204 years before Captain Cook discovered New Zealand. The Original Darnley’s View Gin is made with six different botanicals; with juniper, lemon peel and elderflower make this gin unique. The principle botanicals in the Darnley’s View Spiced Gin recipe are juniper, cinnamon and nutmeg. The spiced gin was enjoyed with ginger ale and a slice of orange; a refreshing twist.
We later tried Lord Elcho, Wemyss’ range of blended Scotch whisky, named after another slice of Wemyss family history. Lord Elcho, Earl of Wemyss, is a distant relative of William Wemyss. Lord Elcho was an influential figure in Scottish history, famous for his role in the Battle of Culloden in 1745.
Jim also pointed out that Wemyss had a cocktail section on their website. While Whisky traditionalists prefer to enjoy their whiskies neat, Wemyss has a fantastic range of cocktail recipes, put together by leading mixologist Jason Scott from Bramble Bar in Edinburgh.
The Wemyss Whisky Brand was officially launched at our Glengarry Victoria Park site at our May Malt Club last year. This is a relatively new brand for Glengarry and is exclusive to the group. Can’t wait for another Wemyss night.
Jak
