Some wonderful surprise whiskies unwrapped
When: 3rd December 2025
Where: Thirsty
Host: Elliott_Drinks_Whisky with the reveal by Thom from Thirsty
This was so much fun! That makes it sound like I don’t find all my events fun, which certainly isn’t true, but this one was definitely different: a blind flight tasting, not just for my guests, but for myself as well. I’d selected a shortlist of 7 bottles for each of the 3 slots, and the team at Thirsty had selected what we ultimately drank. With the reveal of all 3 waiting till the end, we had a good hour of nosing and tasting and discussing to see if we could pick out from my hints sheet what we were drinking. I had tried to populate each shortlist with whiskies that were specifically describable and contrasting each other in terms of their profile. I didn’t want the guessing game to be impossible, so I hoped that offering a list of quite different-sounding drinks would aid in our adventure.
Now, I’m not really sure how to translate our evening into a review page. One way would be to transcribe my notes and thought processes as they unfolded, and leave the reader with the opportunity to guess for themselves based on my unreliable narration. Maybe I’ll try that way another time, but for this page, I’ll keep a little more straightforward: an upfront reveal with a bit of bottle write-up and behind the scenes thought process for each.
To start with, let me just summarise how I approached the game, which was entirely optional, of course; I think more than one guest was happy enjoying the whiskies, isolated from their details until the end, without thinking too hard about what exactly their glasses might have contained. I began by nosing all 3 of the Glencairns we were presented with, back and forth a few times, picking out some notes as they presented themselves. I even deigned to make a guess at that stage; none of those stabs matched my ultimate final guesses, though, one of them was correct. I suppose that leads helpfully on to my confession, of which my ego is perfectly comfortable with me admitting: discounting my nose-only nailing of the Nc’nean, I got no bottles correct. Around the room, nobody got more than 1 correct, and overall, we had 4 correct guesses across the 33 glasses, which is about a 12% hit-rate. I’ve attended a few blind tastings in my time, and honestly, those are pretty typical results.
So after my exploration by nose, I spent time with number 1, followed by another nosing of 2 & 3. Then time with number 2, going back to taste 1 and nose 3. Finally, onto number 3, followed by a general free-for-all. That is how I normally treat these flight nights, even when I know what I’m drinking, but here I felt more conscious of it. Everyone enjoyed the night, the lineup, the challenge, but, as I was told by at least one person, there was definitely a tension or anxiety to it. To end the main portion of the evening, Thom brought out his special box to reveal each bottle in turn after we discussed our guesses a little.
The Whisky
(Click on the images to buy a bottle)
Fanny’s Distillery – Green Monkey Rye
Yorkshire Rye Whisky – 43%
Fanny’s Distillery was new to me when it came to crafting my shortlist. They don’t appear on the English Whisky map, and I’ve struggled to find much out about them. Their rye, single grain and single malt have all won awards either this year or last year. The distillery is located to the northwest of Bradford, and was founded by an ex brewer and publican.
This made the shortlist in part because of it being a new discovery, but also because I thought a rye whisky fitted well in a shortlist where I was aiming for everything to offer some unique and recogniseable notes. Expecting spicy, bready, baking notes should have set it apart from the other options in the first-slot shortlist. The deciding factor for the Thirsty team member that ended up choosing this for us was it’s name!
On first nose, I did indeed get malty cereal notes, and circling back after nosing them all, I was hit with serious ginger. Moving on to tasting, the ginger was still there, with a yeast funk. It was, I thought for a while, on the lower ABV end of the scale, with hints of lemongrass also creeping in. Coming back to it after tasting the second whisky, I was smelling more sherry notes, and tasting it after the third, it felt grassier, with milk bottle sweets.
Notes: 👃🏻Malty, cerealy, ginger, sherry sweetness 👄Ginger, yeast, lemongrass, grassy, milk bottle sweets, Werthers Originals, sunflower seeds.
Nc’nean – Quiet Rebels – Simon
Single Malt Scotch Whisky – 48.5%
This limited bottle of Nc’nean found its way into our lineup as it stood out to Thom, who used to work as an ambassador for them, showing off new cocktails when new bottles appeared. Nc’nean are a wonderful company, and I’ve presented their bottles before – independent, organic, and fans of sustainability, they make unpeated spirit, with their first whisky releasing back in 2020 from their remote western Highland home.
Bottled in late summer, this expression is part of the Quiet Rebels series, where each release is named after a member of the Nc’nean family who helped shape the whisky within. Simon is a distiller with a passion for beer, so this whisky (after initial maturation in STR red wine casks) is finished in stout casks from Scottish brewery Innis & Gunn; the stout casks even started out as Nc’nean casks.
I added this to the shortlist, knowing the quality of all Nc’nean I’ve had before, and expecting the stout cask finish to bring chocolatey malty notes. And indeed, on first nose, I did find chocolate, dried fruit and stale beer! My guess at that point, as I said above, was for the Nc’nean, but I didn’t stick with my gut as the evening went on. First tasting of it gave me fruity, tropical notes, with oaky, creamy feelings following up. It was clear this was stronger than the whisky preceding it. As I moved through the third whisky and returned to this, I didn’t find much change to my impressions.
Notes: 👃🏻Chocolate, dried fruit, stale beer, bit yeasty 👄Fruity, tropical, oaky, creamy, praline, citrus oil.
Duncan Taylor – The Octave – Dalmunach 8 2016 (cask 10846463)
Single Cask, Single Malt Scotch Whisky – 54.2%
Since 2003, independent bottler Duncan Taylor has been using octave casks to impart intense finishes on a wide range of single malts, single grains and blends. They craft their octaves, which are 1/8th the size of a typical butt, from European oak butts, and their smaller stature means the whisky is interacting over a larger surface area per litre, accelerating the maturation process.
This particular bottle comes fresh from a ruby Port octave finish, which should be self-explanatory as to why I shortlisted it. As it was a tiny cask, there were only 66 bottles made available, so it’s something special in that sense as well. Dalmunach is a Speyside distillery built on the site of the lost Imperial distillery by Chivas Brothers (Pernod-Ricard). Mostly used in blends, it is finding fans through independent bottlings with a typical character of citrus & orchard fruits and gently nutty baking notes.
From my first nosing I found citrus, chocolate, biscuits and grape – so not out of place at all! Once I got round to tasting it, it was clearly a stronger ABV, offering up butterscotch and cherry. Cycling round a bit more, I found apple and brown sauce.
Notes: 👃🏻Citrus, chocolate, biscuits, grape 👄Butterscotch, cherry, apple, brown sauce, leathery grape, tobacco, balloon.
The Winner
Vote Winner: Bottle #3 – Duncan Taylor Dalmunach Octave
Unfulfilled Wishes: TBWC Mannochmore 13, Two Stacks Fruit Drops, Fragrant Drops Dailuaine 10
As a seasonal treat, post-reveal, Thirsty were happy to let us have another measure of our favourite (which helpfully meant I didn’t need to take a vote); almost unanimously, people went back to the Dalmunach, with two of us returning to the Nc’nean. On reflection, I think each of the 3 whiskies did offer up a contrasting profile, and my notes do line up fairly well with what one might expect from them. I guess it’s easy to see how to map those to the correct bottles from the shortlist in hindsight 🤷🏻♂️.
I’ve listed 2 bottles there as unfulfilled wishes from the shortlist, as unselected bottles that some of us were really hoping to encounter. My hope is that these will be on the bar at Thirsty soon, or feature in a lineup of mine later on. Firstly, the Boutique-y Mannochmore was designed by a cocktail competition winner, and has been finished in a barleywine octave – need I say more? The Two Stacks is a bonkers blended Irish whisky range of expressions, each finished in a different Californian fruit brandy cask (originally bourbon barrels) – apricot, blackberry and apple – who wouldn’t want to give those a try?!
If you missed out on attending this event (we sold out and already added on a few extra tickets), but it sounds right up your alley, I think we all agreed we’d like to do it again. My current plan is to do a smokey version in February!