It's with a heavy heart I write this review…read more
There's so much promise in a Taking The Bite Out Of Whiskey dinner, and knowing how I do adore that dirty water, KG peeled two bills for a pair of admissions to the tasting.
Perhaps the curriculum was new, or perhaps there was evidenced a severe disconnect between the pair of instructors (one, Jonathan Alsop, the proprietor of the school, and the other, a buyer from the attached liquor store, who led our class) on the use of a photo slide show through the duration of the class, or perhaps it was the less-than-interesting bourbons, ryes and blends sipped, or the hour long wait for the class to even begin... The entire experience just left us underwhelmed.
The space is beautiful - studious, comfortable (even at folding tables and chairs) and inviting. A common reception housed 40 students, who mingled over store-bought cheeses, apricots, pistachios and toast points while awaiting the class start. Fine for 10, 15, hell even 30 minutes, as the congenial hosts tasted barrel cured or bourbon-inspired beers before the show began. But it didn't stop there, as we awaited late comers and began the class almost an hour after it was set to start.
Our group split in to two, with half traipsing through the attached liquor store and the others staying in the sweet study of a classroom. Fortunately, we're in the latter. A candid conversation begins with the upfront admission that there's no real agenda, aside from the tasting schedule, so "ask questions as we go." It quickly became apparent that the second instructor, while extremely knowledgable on whiskey, had very little understanding of Jonathan's intended curriculum, or if he did, then the subject matter was loose and disjointed.
A limited portion of the cheese we'd been eating was served to accompany the flight, and the bottles tasted (from white whiskey to scotch) were "economically feasible," none of which eclipsed a $20 bottle retail. Two and a half hours after the ticketed start time, we're presented with dinner - a single trip (read: no seconds) down a serviced buffet of Blue Ribbon BBQ - and that was that.
So, $100 a head got us 3 oz of well whiskey, a $6 scoop of BBQ, a Trader Joe's cheese plate and a Wikipedia article on distilling corn. I came to understand from our peers that this place is constantly offering 50% off deals through the usual suspects, which would've made the experience a little more fair to the dollar. But at full sticker, we were fooled once. Shame on us.
