Back from Montreal, mother's 95th Birthday, Scotch Tasting

[Quaich1]

Just flew back from Montreal tonight and wanted to report back on the great time I had there. The purpose for the trip was to celebrate mother's 95th Birthday on Sunday at a fancy restaurant at the Casino de Montreal along with my brother and relatives. It was an exquisite event.

While in Montreal I visited a number of SAQ stores which are the Quebec version of the LCBO stores in Ontario. Each chain is owned by the respective provincial governments. The great finding in Quebec is that the prices for the same bottles are almost always cheaper than in Ontario and the selection was really amazing. The other thing that really surprised and impressed me was that at one major SAQ outlet, the manager and I got into a great discussion about single malts and after about 10 minutes, he said, "want to try some"? This has never happened to me in Ontario other than at a specific and pre-arranged paid tasting.
In Montreal, he just spontaneously offered me a variety of single malts in small cups and we discussed the drams in detail afterwards. I particularly enjoyed the Glenmorangie Astar and believe it or not the Swedish single malt, Mackmyra. I was really tempted to buy a bottle of Highland Park 25 Years but I held back as the trip and party were quite expensive. Bought Mom a new outfit for the party instead of the HP25....the better option in the real world is always family first.


While in Montreal I did purchase a bottle of Glenfarclas 105 which I had at a tasting in Ontario some time ago and I really liked it. So all in all, this was a great trip and in the Executive Lounge in Montreal's Pierre Trudeau Airport before boarding my first class flight today I was delighted to be offered a nice selection of single malt scotches on the house.

I look forward to catching up on all the posts on the Forum.
Good to be back.
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"Always carry a large flagon of whisky in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake."
W.C. Fields (1880-1946)

[James T]

Good to hear you had a good time and all went well.

Most whisky specialist shops here in the Scotland and i dare say throughout the UK have samples available which is great but sometimes it is a case of whether your face fits if you get offered any. I usually find picking up a bottle i am going to buy and asking them to hang on to it at the check out usually leads to you being offered a few samples.

The Highland Park 25 is excellent, HP is one of those distilleries that just gets better with age.

Now that is a good reason to fly first class, free single malts, i hope there was a good selection.

[Big Mac]

Welcome back, sounds like it was a good trip.

It has been a while since i have had the Glenfarclas 105, a great dram from one of my favorite distilleries, enjoy.

[albo]

The trip sounded good and I think you did the right thing with the HP 25, there will always be another day to pick up a bottle of that, your mother will only be 95 once.

I enjoyed the 105 when I have tried it, while at the whisky fringe this year I tried the 20yr old version of the 105 which was excellent also, but very expensive from memory £200 or so.

[William]

Welcome back Murray, sounds like you had a good time and you managed to try a few whiskies.

Out of interest do they have travel retail shops in Canadian airports where you can buy whisky when travelling on internal domestic flights within Canada.
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There's no bad whisky. Just good whisky and better whisky.

[Quaich1]

[William]

[bifter]

95 is some age! Glad you had a good time and enjoyed your samples. I was purchasing a bottle for my friends birthday the other day on Princes St and the rep let me try 3 of the Benromach range. I reckon he gets a lot of tourists as he seemed really keen to discuss malts and I got the impression he'd have kept pouring samples if I hadn't been in a rush. I've enjoyed all the Benromachs I've tried and they are decent value, Gordon and MacPhail own the distillery.
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"Whisky is liquid sunshine."
[George Bernard Shaw]

[Quaich1]

[bifter]