A day with Tamnavulin

I've had a little longer break with my blog. It has mostly been due to a need to take a break from a computer altogether, but I'm also suffering on some kind of writers block. There are few bigger posts that has been waiting for almost a year and I don't just seem to get my head around them and it has been just easier to leave them for a while. Good news are that I have still enjoeyd whisky and have been actively reading texts from another blogs and on social media. The best way to tackle my writers block is to take these smaller texts and just start writing and that gets me in to today's topic. A night with some Tamnavulin.

It was in the mid of June and the destination was restaraunt Löyly in Helsinki. Interbrands had invited me to a relaxed evening with some grilling, whisky cocktail workshop, tasting with Jake Saunders from Tamnavulin and the possibility to enjoy swimming and sauna.

Viskeily_blogin Jooel was also invited and because we live on the same direction we decided to go to the event together. That provided us the possibility to swap some whisky samples that had waited a while. On the way to Löyly we also found Viskipullopostia_whiskeypostin Laura, who was in the same tram with us.

In June we also had the first hot days in Finland and when we were sitting on the terrace I started to regret choosing jeans when others were enjoying the weather in shorts and summer dresses.

There were a lot of familiar faces invited with us. Juhis a.k.a Finwhisky, Whiskygirl Finland's Saana and Salla, Smoke on the water blog's Hannu and Friend of whisky account's owner whose name I still don't remember. I think I've asked it few times already, but my face and name memory is really bad. So once again I'm sorry. Still everyone has become more or less familiar during the years and it was really nice to catch up with everyone. The evening started, when Juho brought welcome cocktails for everyone. There was Pinot Noir finished Tamnavulin whisky, Fever-Tree Raspberry & Rhubarb Tonic water and strawberries in the cocktail. An excellent start for the evening.

After the toasts we sat down to enjoy the famous Jasper's salmon soup and I was pleasantly surprised. Definitely the best salmon soup that I have ever eaten. If you ever visit Löyly, try it! After the dinner it was time for the tasting. There were four core range bottles and Jake had also brought few cask samples from the distillery. I didn't take any notes, but the cask samples were both great. There was so much more character and kick in these than in the core range whiskies. Based on these, it would be great to have a single cask Tamnavulin to Finland. While we enjoyed the whiskies, Jake told us facts about the distillery and stories behind the whiskies. We of course tried to get every bit of the info, you only can get in these kind of situations.

After the tasting it was time to grill some sausages and build your own cocktails in the whisky workshop. I have to give an extra credits to the concept of Löyly. They can remove part of the deck and under there is a place for a fire. Then you can sit down by the fire and grill food and enjoy the evening. I outsourced the whisky cocktail workshop to Juho, who created an great cocktail for me. After the "official" part was over, it was time to change in to the trunks and hit to the sauna and swim in the sea.

One of the best whiskies for the evening we enjoyed after we left from Löyly. Juhis had brought a Fettercairn whisky with him and offered a dram for each of us. Then we just watched the sun set in the horizon and enjoyed the moment. A perfect ending for the evening.

Thank you Intebrands, Juho, Jake and everyone else making this event possible and also everyone who attented. Absolutely great night with great people.