Last night whisky club Fulldram hosted another great tasting in Leuven. Titled Class of 89, the concept was to have seven whiskies that all scored 89 points on Whiskyfun.

89 is a high score but it’s slightly short of the magical 90/100 mark, so frankly we were expecting “close but no cigar” whiskies. Some of them are worth € 35, others € 185. Could they really be on the same level?

We were given a sheet of paper with all seven tasting notes but no names. Whiskies were poured blind and it was up to us to match each whisky to a tasting note (quite a challenge).

Congratulations to the Fulldram board for coming up with such a nice idea. It was fun to “quiz” our way through the line-up (all good quality whiskies) and Serge’s tasting notes were an interesting starting point for discussion.

At the end of the evening this was our collective top-3:

1. Highland Park 24 yo 1986 (51,8%, Nectar of the Daily Drams 2010)
2. Glen Moray 36 yo 1973 (53,1%, Whisky Agency ‘Perfect Dram’ 2010)
3. Littlemill 21 yo 1989 (51,3%, Whisky Agency ‘Grotesque Crocs’ 2011)

Also in the tasting were the Ardbeg 12yo 1998 Daily Dram, Lochside 1981 cask #808 by Berry Bros, Port Charlotte 2002 cask #1172 by Malts of Scotland and the standard Talisker 10.

Although I wouldn’t necessarily award them the same score, it was clear that indeed most whiskies were in the same league (roughly between 87 and 90/100 I’d say). Also it should be noted that some of them were attractive drams that certainly displayed some kind of magic. If you only focused on 90+ scores, you wouldn’t discover them (proved by the fact that the Highland Park is still on the shelves in some shops).

Personally I think only one whisky stood out in a negative way: the Talisker 10 years old. Why don’t we take this opportunity and investigate this widely available classic malt…