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Limburg
2018
and
All for
Charity |
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Once again, as in
the last few years
my Limburg adventure started on the Friday evening with my
evening dinner and get-together. Was it really only about 6
years ago when six or seven of us were sitting around a table
discussing and sampling a few drams on the eve of Limburg
weekend? If I remember correctly we had Serge, Patrick de
Schulthess, Oliver Klimek, myself and a couple of others whose
names I forget, forgive me. In those days it was mainly a
get-together for any of The Malt Maniacs who were in town for
the weekend but since then it's grown to what I consider a major
event for all whisky-lovers. In 2017 we had around 30 attendees
and this year, in 2018 the numbers swelled to a very impressive
40+. Speaking to the bar owner afterwards he reckoned we were a
total of 47. |
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The event is an
informal one where attendees are invited to bring along a
bottle of something unusual, perhaps old and forgotten or just
something others may not have tried. For example my offering
this year was the rather unusual Batch number 3 "Shetland Reel"
from the Saxa Vord distillery on Unst in The Shetland Islands.
Saxa Vord is the brainchild of Stuart Nickerson and his wife
Wilma. Yes, that Stuart Nickerson formerly of Glenglassaugh.
He doesn't
distill his own whisky yet, just gin, but he does buy single
malts from other distilleries and blend them into his own
batches on Unst.
You can look forward to a new distillery page and tasting notes
for this soon on Whisky Emporium.
You
can read about my visit to Saxa Vord here |
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After a very late
and liquid Friday
evening we awoke to more sweltering (31°C) heat on Saturday and
the usual very long queue to get into Limburg's Stadthalle and
The Whisky Fair which for me started with a 'breakfast', or
rather tea & coffee meeting with Klaus (of Malt Klaus fame),
Oliver our sausage meister and my dear friend Charlie (of
MacLean fame). It's so good to catch up with Charlie at least
once a year but sadly we missed Alex Bruce and Robin (Blackadder)
who weren't there this year. Robin, we even missed one or two of
your crazy jokes.
So it continued
..... Limburg 2018, sweltering heat for the whole weekend
dictated the need for loads of sun cream and after sun cream,
fighting the crowds on Saturday but enjoying lesser crowds later
on Saturday and all day Sunday. As I did last year my focus for
2018 was on older blends and I managed to pick up some lovely
samples of old White Horse, Whyte & Mackay, Vat69, Gloag's,
Dewar's, Crown of Scotland and even an old JW Red from the WWII
years, plus many more.
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But what's all this
about charity?
Once
again this year I spent some time escaping from the crowds of
The Whisky Fair sitting up on the balcony overlooking the main
hall. A comparitively peaceful respite giving me chance to
relax, recharge and reflect upon a few things like "just what am
I going to do with almost 1200 whisky samples in my MMA
Archive?"
Let me explain;
for 6 years I organised The Malt Maniacs Awards (MMA) annual
whisky competition and in doing so I used some of the left-overs
to create an archive of all entries during those years,
amounting to a total of almost 1200 samples which sit in my
study and include some unbelievably good drams; we're talking
Karuizawa, old Glendronachs, Kavalan, Glenfarclas, Brora, very
old Glen Grants, various G&M "Book of Kells" editions ... etc. I
already have enough samples of whisky to keep me going for many
years, so what can I do with these to allow others to benefit
from them? I would like them to be enjoyed so I came up with the
idea of selling them onwards, but at the same time I didn't want
to personally gain financially from them, I felt it wouldn't be
right even though all left-overs were always mine to do with
as I wished |
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Finally I
hatched a plan to sell them and donate the money to a
suitable charity so my next step was to moot this idea with my
facebook friends and interest was immediately such that I had
offers for each of the six years from six fb friends. Their
generosity was overwhelming and we soon agreed a donation of
€300 per year's worth of samples, raising a total amount of
€1800 for a charity, but which one? Well that was pretty obvious
to me from the onset as my dear wife suffered from the dreadful
brittle bone disease, known by the Germans as Glasknochen (Glass
Bones) or generally by its medical name "Osteogenesis
Imperfecta". During her life she suffered more than 150 broken
bones and as one example she was at work, walking around
barefoot on a hot summer day when she just stubbed a toe on a
chair. Aye, broken but she just sat at a desk, sellotaped the
broken toe to one next to it and then carried on as though
nothing had happened. There were more serious breakages like the
time she had to be helicoptered from Islay to a Glasgow hospital
on the second day of our holiday. She just tripped and fell,
shattering a hip which needed one of the UK's top specialists to
surgically rebuild and after a month she was allowed to fly home on a
stretcher with a Doctor accompanying her. She was collected by
ambulance in Munich and rushed to hospital here for another few
weeks. That's what life's like with this genetic disease but she
always did her best to cope with a bad situation.
My wish for
the money was to help support others with the disease, but also
help fund research into it so after looking around and trying to
make contact with a few organisations I finally chose The
Brittle Bone Society in the UK and Republic Of Ireland. She
loved Ireland and as I'm English it was an obvious choice. |
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My heartfelt thanks and appreciation to Bart, Boris,
John, Klaus, Manfred & Sebastian for your generosity and support! |
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Update;
I've
now received a lovely thank you letter from The Brittle Bone
Society which I'd like to share with everyone: |
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A
selection of previous Dram-atics highlights
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The Malt
Maniacs Awards - MMA |
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Dec.
2010 |
December's Advent-urous drams,
Nant Distillery,
The road to Certification |
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Nov. 2010 |
Journey to end of Scotverse,
Wick,
Pulteney,
Balblair,
Knockdhu,
Homecoming,
Tweetup,
Chilling with Cooley |
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Oct.
2010 |
The John Walker,
Sampling with Master of Malts,
Changing jobs,
Whisky Round Table |
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Sept.
2010 |
Playing Chinese whispers,
Oktoberfest,
SMWS Spirit Cellar,
500,000 |
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August
2010 |
Elementary my dear Islay,
Handbags at dawn,
Dram-arkable 500,
Cheapo Challenge,
Ah Dooagh,
1 from 3 left |
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July
2010 |
Age
matters. A series of whisky reviews concentrating upon 'Age' |
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June
2010 |
Jules
Rimet, pickles & crisps.
Mon coeur, mon amour oh mon sherry.
A
taste of the great outdoors. |
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May
2010 |
The
highly-acclaimed and record-breaking "Desert Island Drams" |
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April
2010 |
My
peat's bigger than your peat,
A foursome with a famous Scottish
bird |
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March
2010 |
Sample
Mania tasting notes,
The Good, the Bad & The Loch Dh-Ugly,
A return to sanity,
The Choice of Managers |
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Jan-Feb
2010 |
Keep
taking the medicine,
It's Festival time,
Maker's Mark,
Sleeveless in Munich |
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Dec. 2009 |
All
power to bean-counters,
protecting Scotch,
seasonal drams,
Definitive Xmas Drams,
2009 Whisky Awards |
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Nov. 2009 |
How it
all started,
Bonfire night,
Autumnal musings,
EU Tax & Duty,
What's in a (whisky) name? |
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© Copyright
2009-2018 by Keith Wood - All rights reserved - Whisky-Emporium |
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