The year is drawing to a close and that means that apart from massive amounts of holidays, there’s also the Usquebaugh Society‘s Blind Tasting Competition.

A competition that starts right after Sinterklaas, and runs until Christmas. 18 days of tasting, analyzing and making a huge ass of yourself, if history is any indication of what’s to come.

I am ridiculously bad at it, and the fact that the selection of drams can be anything as long as its Single Malt from Scotland. All ages, casks, years of distillation, bottler, region and alcohol. The drams that have passed the gauntlet have been anything between a 33 year old Glenkinchie, a cask sample of 7 year old Glenfiddich to a 1970s bottling of Strathisla.

This year the competition is bigger than ever with over 70 people participating, from four different countries (mostly Dutch, a couple of people from Belgium and Israel and a gal from Sweden). It’s going to be fun if you can look at the competition passed the humiliation.

Last year I almost finished last (45 out of 59), while the year before I ended up at a satisfying 12th place (out of 52). I hope this year is more like 2012 than 2013. I don’t necessarily have to win but of course I play to do just that. Luckily, even if I screw up massively, I end up drinking 18 different and interesting whiskies.

I am hugely looking forward to it, and if you find this interesting, you’ll find my blog and those two very interesting over the coming 2.5 weeks:

• Words of Whisky by Thijs Klaverstijn
• Lyne Arm by Matthijs Hakfoort

Two of the Israeli participants and the Swedish one have blogs too, so those might have some updates on what’s what too:

• Whisky Gospel by Yoav Gelbfish
• Whisky Israel by Gal Granov
• Mrs. Wolfmoon’s Whisky by Anki Ulvmane

This is going to be a fun month!