Challenge accepted

In these peculiar times, we’ve all had to adapt in one way or another, so rather than halting our readers’ whisky challenge all together, we decided to go virtual. On 7 August we invited nine of our lovely readers with a passion for whisky to take part in a blind tasting of 35 different drams from distilleries across the country.

Normally the tasting takes place at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society in Leith and while we couldn’t be together in person this year, it was lovely to see our readers sampling different whiskies from the comfort of their own home, chatting over which they liked best and least.

This year’s panel includes members of whisky clubs from across Scotland, a food and drink writer and a film-maker. The experience was a welcome change for business owner and mother of three Anna Miller. ‘I enjoyed the tasting challenge immensely. The idea of sipping whisky at 10am on a Friday with a ‘zoomful’ of new friends felt edgy and rather naughty!’

Blair Bowman, our very own whisky columnist and founder of World Whisky Day, was there to give tasting advice to our panel.

Blair revealed how he writes his tasting notes. ‘I start with one word, such as citrus, then I zoom in to grapefruit, is it yellow, pink? Is it juice, peel, caramelised, until I get to caramelised pink grapefruit peel. It’s like a game of Guess Who?’

The Scottish Field Readers’ Whisky Challenge has launched whisky careers too. ‘I was in the Readers Challenge years ago, it launched my whisky career,’ said Blair Bowman.

‘This is the most authentic whisky competition there is because it’s completely blind. I’ve been very impressed by the calibre of everyone selected. They’ve taken on the challenge brilliantly and done exceptionally well with compiling their scores and tasting notes,’ Blair said.

As always the top three whiskies go through to our Grand Final with a chance of being crowned ‘Whisky of the Year’. We’d like to thank everyone for taking part and look forward to celebrating our 21st anniversary next year when we hope we can join together again.

If you would like to be on the Scottish Field Readers’ Panel in 2021, email whisky@scottishfield.co.uk