To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the Whisky Club Luxembourg invited all its members and friends to the Alvisse Parc Hotel in Dommeldange on 20 & 21 October 2017.

On Friday evening, it all started with a whisky dinner. In the club’s tradition, a seven course menu was served, every course being accompanied by a specially selected whisky. To be at the height of the expectations of an anniversary dinner, the selected bottles were exquisite, reaching from club exclusive bottlings to strictly limited single cask releases.

Preceding the main course, a particularly rich tombola was held, offering prizes woth over €5,000 in total value. The returns of the tombola sale entirely went to the “Télévie“, an association supporting cancer research. The club could only organise such a huge tombola thanks to its many sponsors; as a result, more than €3,000 was raised for charity.

Cigar-lovers were invited after dinner to meet in a tent in front of the hotel where they could enjoy special cigars provided by the club’s long-term partner, liberté 56. Meanwhile, other whisky enthusiasts were still philosophising about the marvels they had been tasting along the evening.

On Saturday, a real premiere took place as the club organised its first whisky fair. Across 8 interesting stands, visitors were invited to discover new and exclusive bottlings as well as extraordinary sake and cigars. The whisky club was proud to offer on its own stand several new whisky-related products. First of all there was the new club bottling, a 25 year old single grain whisky distilled in 1991 in the nowadays closed distillery of Cambus. Furthermore the club introduced its whisky-flavoured jam by Autisme Luxembourg asbl and a specially crafted beer by Heischter Brauerei. The latter was the precursor for a beer matured in a whisky cask that is going on sale in a few weeks' time. Finally, new hand-blown glass pipettes were on display as well as the third edition of the whisky and chocolate box.

While the fair, that turned out to be a huge success, was going on, three very special tastings were taking place. The Bruichladdich masterclass, certainly the highlight of the week-end, was held by a flown-in brand manager who invited the participants to a two-hour trip to the isle of Islay by introducing them to the history and philosophy of Bruichladdich distillery whilst tasting several very exclusive drams.

The second tasting was pairing whisky and cheese to four astonishing duos. The secretary of the whisky club lead through this event which ended in an absolutely fabulous combination of a Shromshire Blue cheese and a port cask matured peated Islay whisky.

The week-end ended in a tasting of the whisky club committee’s very personal favourites. Each one of the six committee members presented one of his all-time favourites. This tasting was more about the fascination and the discovery of different tastes than about dry facts. There were lots of tales, questions, shop talks and most of all laughter. Definitely the perfect ending for a successful weekend. To the next ten years, slainte!