In recent times, I often stumbled upon Twitter Tastings and other online whisky get-togethers. They always sounded like good fun, but I never managed to take part in any. Until yesterday! Thanks to Douglas Laing’s Marketing Assistant Hannah, I got an invitation to the first iteration of A Remarkable Regional Mix Up! – a web-based whisky tasting and cocktail class streamed live on the Instagram profile of Douglas Laing’s Remarkable Malts range and the Facebook fan page of their Timorous Beastie premium blend. Taking super-good care of me and the other participants, the Glasgow-based company even provided us with the required components beforehand, sending out killer cocktail sets including four minatures of Timorous Beastie and Big Peat as well as various other ingredients. At this point, I would like to raise my hat to Hannah, who must have spent hours packing and dispatching all that stuff!

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The stream itself started on time at 7PM (GMT) yesterday. It was hosted by Douglas Laing’s Global Brand Ambassador Jan and Business Development Manager David. On screen, they had a great chemistry and lead us through very entertaining 45 minutes jam-packed with information, anecdotes and – of course – recipes! We started with a neat dram of Timorous Beastie and then went on to mix an Old Fashioned from that very same whisky. While the composition of said cocktail is really simple, the key to its success lies in the time we give it. When ordering an Old Fashioned in a bar, Jan advised us, we’d better be patient and give the barkeepers all the time they need to stirr the cocktail properly. Next up was Douglas Laing’s singature Islay smoke bomb Big Peat. Again, we first tried this sturdy blend on its own before we took on the challenge to produce a Smoky Sour from it. Although I shook my cocktail like crazy, the powdered egg flakes that remained in the liquid revealed that I am not (yet) an apt mixologist. Still, the drink itself was really delicious and that is what counts in the end!

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Despite the fact that I learned a bit more about two of Douglas Laing’s fantastic Remarkable Malts and got to drink two helluva nice cocktails, I also enjoyed the fact that I was able to share this experience with an intimate group of fellow whisky enthusiasts. I was happy to see many people, whose blogs I read frequently or whose social media profiles I follow attentively, among the participants… The Whisky Lady, Amateur Drammer, Tasty Dram and quite a few others! This created a wonderful feeling of togetherness and showed how sharing a common passion unites people from a lotta different countries – sometimes at a fair or other real-life event and sometimes at an online gathering like this. Needless to say, I am looking forward to meet all these gals and guys (plus hopefully many others) again when Douglas Laing rings in the next round of their A Remarkable Regional Mix Up! live streams.

by Tobi

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Timorous Beastie (NAS/ Blended Scotch Whisky/ Highlands / 46.8% / ~50 Euro)
Big Peat (NAS / Blended Scotch Whisky / Islay / ~50 Euro)

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Douglas Laing: http://www.douglaslaing.com/
Timorous Beastie on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dltimorousbeastie/
Big Peat on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bigpeat/
Remarkable Malts on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/remarkable_malts/

*** I was kindly invited to the event by Douglas Laing. ***