WhiskyFest San Francisco 2008

For those who don't already know, WhiskyFest is a great show put on by John Hansel and Malt Advocate Magazine. They hold 3 shows every year in Chicago, San Francisco and New York.

The focus is squarely on our favorite brown spirit and the products represented are predominantly whiskies. Brandy,  Vodka, liquers and Rum make appearances but are in the extreme minority.

For us, it's a whisky wonderland.

Every one of these shows has its own personality and character. Some of that comes from the format, some from the attendees and a health chunk comes from the sponsors. People like John Hansel and Riannon Walsh work very hard to keep these three forces in alignment and aimed in the right direction.

WhiskyFest is very much an industy showcase. The major players and minor importers are on the same footing here. Everyone has the same space to work with, but that doesn't imply that the presentations are at all equal.

Diageo in particular takes this show very seriously and brings out the heavy hitters. Tom and Hollis Bulleit, Evan Cattanach, and a couple of their Masters of Whisky were working the crowds around the tables and allowing samplers to handle the product. Steve Beal had assembled a crack team of experts for this show. This year all of the Diageo tables were clustered on one row with Bulleit, Buchannan's, and Crown Royal on one side and Bushmills, Johnnie Walker and the Classic Malts on the other. Diageo row had the largest most consistent traffic of any area on the floor. This has to be due to them having samplers behind and experts in front of all the tables. More people got better information because of that expertise. Diageo's samplers are also very well trained and are capable of answering almost any question posed.

This is in stark contrast to some other brands which sent samplers that don't know their own product at all.  Also, I think other brands would do well to get the bottles out of their expert's hands. For example, John Glaser should be in the isles talking to dozens of people about the fine art of blending rather than being caught behind the table pouring samples. Let the samplers handle the mundane questions about the differences between a vatted malt whisky and a vatted grain whisky. 

It was a pleasure seeing John Hall from Forty Creek again. John Glaser introduced me to Hedonism (or was it Hedonism Maximus?)  which is an amazing vatted grain whisky. I tasted The Glenlivet '72 and '69 with Rick Edwards on the charity table. I also had a change to chat with David Perkins from High West, though I still have not tasted his new Vodka. I touched base with James Bruton at Skyy, who was a great help with our charity event last year. Sadly, Richard Paterson did not make it stateside for this show and I have not yet had an opportunity to thank him for the ice pelting he delivered a year ago. I also ran into former collegues Sarah Bradley, and Adam Wolffe, but the suprise of the show was Camper English whom I have not seen since 1999.

I also missed Steve Beal's talk this year. He always has a great presentation and his knowlege of Whisky is invaluable but freely shared. I managed to chat with him briefly late in the show.

If you have the chance to attend one of these shows, take it. Our first trip taught us to appreciate Scotch and introduced us to wide range of flavor possibilities. Every year we'll be back and hopefully never stop learning something new about what this spirit can do.