Today is the 5th birthday of my blog. Almost 1250 posts in, with a couple thousand visitors every month, I’m still having fun doing this.

To celebrate, ever since the first birthday in 2010, I invite a couple of friends for food and drams. The whisky is a blind tasting in which everyone brings a bottle. The food comes from my barbecue. Or, in this year’s situation, from three barbecues.

Surprisingly, since I’m doing this in August, nobody cancelled because of holidays. Which also means the group was a bit bigger than it was previous times. But the back yard was big enough, I could borrow a third barbecue, and I got a good deal on the meat so no problems there.

At the end of the night, with almost everybody bringing more than one bottle, my liver did see some problems. As you might imagine I didn’t do much on Sunday…

6 kilos of pork.

Still some 10 hours to go!

Quite sweet and candy like but very tasty!

Great nose and finish, a bit flat on the palate. Ancient stuff!

Surprisingly tasty, I didn’t expect this!

Wait, no smoke? Nobody guessed Islay at all.

Always a good one, this. The bottle shape gave it away though.

This was surprisingly good too. One that I might have to stock up on while I have the chance

Still some ways to go!

A surprise Bruichladdich, quite tasty.

Really enjoyable. A bit younger tasting than it is

After this one we had the new 15 year old Heaven Hill bourbon from Malts of Scotland, which they finished in a sherry cask. I really loved that one. (which is good, since it’s mine)

Wow! Just wow!

Let the infidels burn! But also good whisky.

Again, surprising. Really tasty

A bit sharp and needs some time to open up. Goo d, but not great.

This bottle needs some air. I remember it way more fondly than it tasted.

A surprise Arran. Quite young, but a lot of flavor

My favorite of the night. This is an epic whisky. Highly complex with some weird flavors. But so, so good.

Also good. I might have to go there in November and see if there’s more where this came from!

Yes! Great stuff. Quite typical for Littlemill nowadays.

A bit of rubber, but not in a bad way. Intense!

By now things started to get a bit fuzzy…

Far more tasty than expected…

I believe after this there still were two drams left. A Blair Athol that I enjoyed, and a Rare Malt Millburn that I don’t really remember (sorry Martin!)

As you might guess, this was a rather great night. Epic drams were had. Everyone’s favorites were different, but my number one dram was the undisclosed Irish whisky from The Nectar. I really regret not buying that one!

Thanks for making this possible Henk, Henk, Helen, Antoine, Tom, Tom, Thomas, Teun, Jeroen, Bram, Martin, Fulco. Most of all though, thanks to Anneke for making dessert, handling the kids and general helpfulness in making this possible!