Newcastle Whisky Festival 2024
My local whisky festival, brought to Newcastle on an annual basis by 'The Whisky Lounge'. Always a staple in my calendar, tickets were booked upon release for the Saturday afternoon (1st) session to allow for a couple of beers and much needed catchup with my fellow whisky enthusiast friend.
Arriving at Newcastle City Centre for 11.30 with the sun shining, the pre-match meal had to take place, and being the athlete I am, there was one going to be one winner.
2 Greggs sausage rolls later, we approached the venue to the gathering crowd with anticipation. A few fellow members of the North East Whisky Appreciation Society (NEWAS) group were clear to see in their vibrant orange kit and the doors were soon opened to let the crowd in.
Sausage rolls now lining the stomach, ready to fight off the copious amounts of alcohol its about to be subjected to, our electronic tickets were scanned and we were greeted with the 2024 version of the Glencairn. A nice addition to the glass collection.
Approaching 40 years old and spending an hour on the bus into Newcastle, the obligatory trip to the Men's room had to take priority, along with dropping the bulky winter jacket off at the cloakroom. Well organised as always (the venue that is, not the mens-room side-track). Anyway, time to head upstairs to the amber delight.
Upon initial scanning of the room, we noticed many of the same exhibitors as last year. Now its great to have them return, and the quality is always good, but it would be nice to see some new exhibitors make the trip to this festival. I wasn't at the 2022 festival, but from what I've heard, it was the same exhibitors again that time too.
Anyway, we made the decision to start with Arndamurchan. I don't think this needs explanation, the quality is always great and i was keen to see what they brought along. The first was the butterflies edition AD/04:16 CK 413 which was a handpicked cask from Roy at the popular YouTube site Aqvavitae. Bottled at 55% this was a powerful and very welcoming start to today's festival. A great dram by all accounts. They also brought their Sherry Cask finish, which has been on my 'want' list for quite some time, but I've never found it easily available. Eager to sample we dove in and we both loved it. A real fruit blast.
Discussing the issues I've had finding this and thanking them for the sample, I was informed they had 6 bottles with them today. "Damn, there goes my self-induced whisky bottle buying embargo!!"
Compromising on a bottle-share with my best mate, we snapped one up from the shop and continued with our tour of the room.
Enjoyable drops from Elements of Islay, Port Askaig and SMWS, the crowd had started to clear enough for us to jump in at Cadenheads.
I started with the Linkwood 10 year old, oloroso cask matured at 56.8%. Real earthy and meaty. I felt like this would need a knife and fork it has such a thick texture. Lovely!
By my side, my whisky comrade appeared to be very impressed with the Benriach 15 year old, manzanilla cask matured, bottled at 55.2%. Enquiring on the cost of this and being told a reasonable £75, he was strongly considering a purchase. Now, this speaks volumes as this fella does not part with his money on whisky easily at all. Tasting it myself, I concur it was possibly the best Benriach I had tried.
We moved on to more samples, with the Cadenhead's staff being fantastic at explaining and discussing each of their bottlings. Having heard, but never tried any of the enigma series, I had to try the 25yo blend they had today. Reportedly, they hold next to no information on where this comes from or how many bottles there are, but the tasting notes had me intrigued.
Dark chocolate, walnuts and a hint of spice, the enigma blend was decent, although the low abv presents this whisky as particularly light in terms of mouthfeel. Probably not helped further by the abundance of cask strength samples we had already tried prior to this.
The Benriach won this for me but I did enjoy the meatiness of the Linkwood.
The next stand we attended was
Gleann Mor with their stunning 'Rare Find' bottles. I am personally a fan of a fancy brand and bottling and Gleann Mor have it spot on with their Rare Find range. Explaining the thumb print that comes with their logo is from a distiller leaving that on in error during a labelling, it is now incorporated into their logo. The exhibitors telling us how they watch various people try and rub the finger print off the bottle thinking its a smudge, before being told its part of their actual logo. :) A cool story!
We tasted two of their bottlings, the Mortlach 10 year old and the Islay 10 year old. Our palates went separate ways at this point, with my mate preferring the Islay, whereas I LOVED the Mortlach. Bottled at 59.3% with a Shiraz finish, this was a belter of a dram! At a price of £88-90 though, its a tad out of my price range. Oh yeah, and I'm meant to be on an embargo, or at least try.....
We continued to tour a few more exhibitors, with a positive mention to Spirit of Yorkshire, Filey Bay for their wonderful drams. Their flagship was very nice and their Yorkshire Day was fantastic. The cask blend going on in that bottle was excellent. Again though, no longer available I am told. Luckily, I have a tasting event with Spirit of Yorkshire coming this weekend, so I'm looking forward to this even more now. I have since heard that the Filey Bay Flagship won 'dram of the day', so congratulations to them on a great product.
However, it was the next two exhibitors who stole the show for me. Berry Bros and Rudd and then Compass Box. Now, this was hugely unexpected, but bare with me...
Berry Bros and Rudd - We tried 3 of their bottlings, starting with the Ardmore vintage 2012, 11 year old sherry butt. Bottled at 59.6% I was a huge fan of this. Now admittedly, I'm very much 'pro-peat', and this Ardmore ticked all of the boxes for me.
Next was the Benriach 2010, 13 year old PX, bottled at 60.7%. Another top drawer whisky that anyone would enjoy amongst their collection.
With several bottles on offer to sample, we asked the exhibitor for a recommendation, to which the Orkney islands (Highland Park) PX, bottled at 51.1% for Tipples of Manchester was presented.
Ok, WOW! this was fantastic. Straight onto the wanted list for a day when I can afford to purchase whisky again. My dram of the day!!
Moving on to Compass Box, I wish I had asked for the name of the young chap who we spoke to about all of the bottlings available today. By this time, the crowds had dispersed and we seemed to have the full focus of Compass Box to explore their range. Having tried a few of their core range before and discussing our palate preferences, the young lad grabbed a bottle from under the stall (not on display) but offered us a sample. This was the 'Metropolis', a bottle which retails at £230-260 (shocked eyes emoji) and holds a blend of older aged whiskies from Abelour, Bowmore & Miltonduff. Fantastic and very much appreciated. Rapport continuing to build, he again grabbed a further bottle from under the counter and dropped us a sample in each glass, this time the Compass box 'Duality'.
A collaborative blend between Compass Box and Bimber, this bottle is a blend of Bimber and Ardbeg. Holy S***balls! I love Ardbeg.......I love Bimber.... and together they've created some superior blend from the Gods. Unfortunately to my disappointment, the bottle is no longer available and even on auction its going for £170+. Such a shame! But a wonderful experience and a privilege to try such great drams.
A few additional tasters finished off the festival but I felt we had peaked with the last 2 stalls. Time came to a close and at 15:30 the session had ended. We were now starving and craving food. Not having the wives/partners with us, we new we could choose quantity (and cost) over quality, so we hit up KFC followed by another Greggs pasty on the way to the bars for a few beers to discuss our day. The beers were washed down with even greater satisfaction in the knowledge of having our shared bottle of Ardnamurchan Sherry Cask bottle still to enjoy another day.
I attach a list fop the drams sampled on the day (well, the ones I can remember). Sadly I forgot to make note of the SMWS ones we tried. Overall though, a great day. A good atmosphere and it didn't feel as cramped and as busy as last year, thankfully.
The best bits- Really well organised.
- Good location with easy transport links central to Newcastle
- Fair price for the range on offer
- Compass Box impressing!
- Finally getting the Ardnamurchan Sherry cask for us to enjoy again.
The bits which could be better
- The whisky lounge website didn't update at all prior to the event, stating confirmed exhibitors would be displayed prior to the event, but this never occurred.
- More variety in exhibitors would be great, rather than the same ones every year.
- More communications around the confirmed 'dram of the day' which has QR codes at each of the exhibitors stalls. I still haven't heard who won last year, despite sending emails of enquiry. EDIT: I have since found out that Spirit of Yorkshire's Filey Bay Flagship won the dram of the day for this year, although this news was on their own social media and not from the whisky lounge themselves.
Not one to end on any negatives though, as like I say, the day was top drawer. I preferred this year to last, and we will no doubt attend again in 2025. My next booked festival is for the 'Indy Love Whisky Festival' in Newcastle in September. I'm already looking forward to that. Now I best go to the gym to work off all that pastry!
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