September 2020 marked the first month of Master of Malt's new spin off venture, Pour and Sip. We signed up, and after receiving our first box (and attending our first virtual tasting), here's our thoughts...
What is Pour and Sip?
Pour & Sip is a new whisky subscription service, which sends out a selection of five 30ml whiskies every month for £29.95. It is a venture by “Drinks by the Dram” and “Master of Malt”.
Each month, the curated set of five 30ml whiskies can be tasted during virtual events with the Pour and Sip team, on Facebook or YouTube.
What is in the first box?
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In your first box, it’s not just whisky... The branded box opens out to display a definition of ”Sláinte”, as well as a “how to taste whisky” leaflet to help you get the most of your tasting experience.
Under the leaflet, it’s straight to the good stuff!! In the below image, you can see the first Pour and Sip offering (September 2020), which included whiskies from Scotland, USA, Ireland, and Sweden. We’ll look closer at the whiskies soon.
Lifting the whiskies up reveals two full size Glencairn whisky tasting glasses. Perfect for nosing the whiskies.
To help you in your tasting adventure, also supplied are tasting cards for each whisky. One side of the card has tasting notes for you to read and compare what you get from the whisky, and on the other side is space for you to write your own tasting notes.
Lastly, the box contains a welcome letter, within its own envelope. A nice touch and adding to the overall experience of being in the Pour and Sip community.
The First Five Whiskies
We’ll go into more detail on the whiskies in a separate blog post, but in the first box, we received:
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- Mackmyra Grönt Te (46.1%)
- Bunnahabhain 12 Year Old (46.3%)
- Balvenie 14 Year Old - The Week of Peat (48.3%)
- Teeling Brabazon Bottling Series 3 (49.5%)
- Legent Bourbon (47%)
The First Pour and Sip Tasting Event
In the evening of Thursday September the 24th 2020, Pour and Sip held their first tasting session online (on both Facebook and YouTube). You can rewatch the tasting events using these links.
The tasting event took viewers through all five whiskies, but this isn’t going to be the norm, and was only done as part of the first event.
The Pour and Sip host suggested that going forward, tasting sessions during the month would be split into two or more sessions, going through two or three of the whiskies each session in more detail.
The event was well organised, and the host was engaging. It was great that during the event, comments on the Facebook feed were read out and discussed during the tasting, really helping to give viewers the feeling of being involved!
Hosting a remote whisky tasting is not easy, but the Pour and Sips team managed to do a great job of making it interesting and as interactive as possible. I think future events will be even better.
Other benefits of the Pour and Sip Club
As well as all of the above, if you taste a whisky from the box which you love, you can buy it with a 10% exclusive members discount in the Pour and Sip shop. This is only available to Pour and Sip subscribers!
The discounts can really add up, for example with the "Teeling Brabazon Bottling Series 3" Irish whisky in the first box, you could pick up a full sized bottle as a member for ÂŁ80, instead of the RRP of just under ÂŁ90.
Conclusion
We love the idea of whisky subscription boxes. And, whilst Pour and Sip isn't the first to do this, their connections to existing product lines via their Master of Malt and Drinks by the Dram affiliation makes the selection of whiskies possible in future boxes almost endless!
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We really enjoyed the selection of whiskies in the first box (and the second, which we've now received), and it's likely that we'll continue to be a Pour and Sip subscriber going forward. That is the true mark of a great product, when someone is willing to pay month after month!
If you'd like to give Pour and Sip a try, head over to their website now and order your first box!
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