Scotch Malt Whisky Society, June 2025 Outturn

June 3, 2025

Gathered again with fellow SMWS members at Birch Road in Lincooln Park. Despite the events becoming less frequent, there was a good showing tonight – with nearly all the seats full.

I’m used to these being monthly events, and now we’re down to one every few months. Still – glad folks are making it out, despite the long wait in between.

Some interesting curveballs tonight. At our table, we were talking about how sometimes the tastings will do something crazy to throw everyone off (example: giving us an 18-year-old whisky as our first dram).

Tonight, the first two drams were both 10 year old whiskys… which made for some fun discussions, given how different they were.

Later on in the tasting, we got a dram that was from a distillery we had tasted earlier in the night – two drams from Tomatin (and both of them, 10-year whiskys: Those Tropicali Blues and Camping Trip Treats).

An interesting observation: I was tickled to hear the volume of the group go really loud, at the start of the evening. Usually, things get a bit more raucous around the second or third dram (as you would imagine), but tonight it got loud faster than I’m used to.

I was happy to hear the noise levels go up so fast, and also happy to realize that I had a certain expectation of cadence, for these events. I’m starting to feel like a regular.

Liz, who takes way more notes than me. WHile I’m usually better on guessing ABV, I was wildly off tonight.

We sat at the high-top tonight, and hung out with Brian (not pictured), Lauren, Vlad, and James. We’ve met Vlad and James a few times, chatting with them at the last event… and I’m glad we got the chance to hang out together tonight.

Our friend Max showed up shortly after the event started, and unfortunately we didn’t have an extra seat at the table. But everyone ended up gathering near us after the event ended (with Lauren being impossibly generous with his bottles, as per usual).

Of note: Vlad brought a Society bottle to share, and through random comments from other participants… I learned that it was a definite crowd favorite. Liz and I talked, and we are feeling like we really need to bring something to share with the group.

Side note: got into some fun conversations with folks, with many of us lingering around after the event ended. I chatted at length with the group I refer to (in my head) as “The Doctors” – Tony (Biochemistry), Dave (an ER doc), and Tomek (who was a grad student in Biochemistry when we first met, but has since graduated and gotten married) – Steve (the Joyce enthusiast) was sadly not able to attend.

I learned that several of them live near us, on the South side. And that Tomek actually lived remarkably close to us – like… half a block away, close. Small world!

Given the infrequent Society events, folks were talking about doing our own makeshift events… which sounds like a blast.

Whisky and Society folks – a very interesting crowd. And a very, very small world.

liz smws whisky

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