12th Annual New York Whisky Fest (November 10, 2009)

Tonight (Nov 10) is the 12th Annual WhiskyFest at the Marriot Marquis in Times Square, NYC. The event lasts from 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM and will feature “200 of the world’s finest, rarest, and most expensive, single malt and blended Scotch, Irish, bourbon, Tennessee, Japanese, Welsh, Canadian and other whiskies from around the world”. Speaking of fine malts, I just received an email from the good people at The Balvenie and they informed me that they’ve got a new limited edition 17 Year Old Madeira Cask which will be available for tasting at tonight’s event— judging from the picture, it looks quite delicious*.

The Balvenie 17 Year Old Madeira Cask

If you can’t make the Whisky Fest, the master distillers at The Balvenie are holding a series of private tastings of the new 17 Year Old Madeira Cask for Warehouse 24 members throughout the month of November in select cities around the US. To RSVP for these exclusive events in DC, Austin TX, Chicago, San Francisco or Los Angeles, head on over to thebalvenie.com and create a Warehouse 24 profile. Once you become a Warehouse 24 member, in addition to receiving emails and the like, you’ll also be able to keep track of your entire whisky collection online through their new “whisky shelf” application. (I checked this thing out a little, and while having the ability maintain a list of your own Scotches is nice, the bigger benefit of this application is being able to see what the rest of the community thinks of each bottle.)

* Full disclosure, I have requested a sample of this Scotch to confirm that it is, in fact, delicious. To any other distillers who might be reading, feel free to send me your most expensive bottles of Single Malt Scotch (hell, I’ll even take some nice blends), and I’ll be more than happy to write about them in this space.