In honour of International Women’s Day 2026, we gave the whisky tasting hosting floor to amazing women in our club and in the industry.
First up, a BIG THANKS 🙏 to our guest presenters Jenna, Marianne, Ethan and Dee for presenting their chosen bottles.
We’ll say a bit about each bottle individually but here was the full line up:
1. Singleton of Dufftown 18 Year Old 70cl Whisky (40%, £72.40 – £85)
2. Wire Works NSD Double Wood (54.8%, £95.95)
3. Dalwhinnie Lizzies Dram (48%, No longer available)
4. Nc’Nean Organic batch .12 (46%, No longer available)
5. Power Johns Lane 12yr old Single Pot Still Cask Strength (57.8%, £85) *** Dram of the Night ***
6. Cooper King Double Matured: Australian Tawny Into Peated (58.4%, No Longer Available, was £115)
In keeping with this year’s theme for IWD #GiveToGain, through donations during checkout, Rob’s jammy dodgers and a donation for bottling, we raised £142 for our nominated charity, St Leonard’s Hospice.
The Singleton 18 : Presented by Jenna
Jenna had the opening hosting spot, with her choice of The Singleton 18 from the Dufftown distillery in Speyside. Released as part of their Singleton range, they use spice-imparting refill ex-bourbon casks and fruit-enriching Pedro Ximenez Oloroso seasoned casks. A lot of “we could drink this all night” comments meant that our tasting got off to a great start.
Official tasting notes:
Nose
Soft, inviting, dry, and autumnal. Sweet, stewed fruits (apricot preserve), ripe autumn apples, and rich berry fruits. Soon, roasted nuts; hazelnut, walnut. Wood Scented too; dry tea-leaves, fresh-cut pine resin. The fruits soften, revealing rich vanilla and toffee over chocolate and caramel. This smoothness is finely balanced by subtle cereal; neither overpowering nor cloying. A little water restores the appetising fruit: blackberries, pears in syrup. Vanilla and polished wood too.
Body
Great mouthfeel: light to medium body, softly coating the tongue.
Palate
Firm to full. Again dry and sweet, gently dominated by nuts, dark toffee, and gentle mint, before the fruits return as rhubarb and apple juice. Becomes deep and mouth-coating; a hint of almond biscuit, then woody, light spiciness. Late dryness with a rich, silky cocoa bitterness, growing spicy. The fruits darken and run sweetly below. Water cools things; softer and less rich now, dominated by the sweet fruit. Very subtle mint and liquorice toffee notes.
Finish
Sweetness softly introduces a longer, drying oakiness. Stewed-fruit freshness. Wood-smoke spiced with faint black pepper.
Wire Works NSD Double Wood : Presented by Marianne
Slightly betraying her Scottish roots (her words!), Marianne was next up to present our second dram, a recent release from White Peak Distillery that she’s enjoyed.
Claire Vaughan co-founded White Peak with partner Max, and they’ve gone from strength-to-strength since releasing their first whisky in 2022 including winning ‘Best World Whisky’ in 2025.
This time we were sampling Wire Works Whisky NSD Double Wood – a single cask, double maturation of their lightly-peated house style that spent equal time maturing in two ex-bourbon barrels directly sourced from Heaven Hills (Evan Williams) and Never Say Die (NSD). Never Say Die is the first Bourbon to be distilled in Kentucky, shipped via Atlantic Ocean vessel and then matured in England, billed as an ‘English take on the American Dream’.
A quality dram that we were all delighted to try, and which built on a flavour theme for the night.
Dalwhinnie Lizzies Dram : Presented by Ethan
Whilst Ethan works for Dalwhinnie, for our International Women’s Day 2026 tasting, he visited in an unofficial capacity to share one of his auction purchases, a bottle of Lizzie’s Dram.
This was a limited edition distillery exclusive honouring Elizabeth Stewart who worked at Dalwhinnie for over 30 years, a trailblazer for women in the traditionally male-dominated whisky industry.
Working across a huge number of roles from production to visitor centre, this release was made when she retired in 2018 and she was involved in shaping its creation.
Nc’Nean Organic batch .12 : Presented by Jim
The fourth dram was from Nc’Nean – one of Scotland’s newer distilleries and apt for the tasting since it’s a genuinely female‑led distillery – not just in management but in shaping the spirit and the whisky as well.
Founder Annabel Thomas, a former management consultant, returned to her family’s farm to build a modern distillery from scratch, part of the new generation of Scotch producers.
She was aided on the production side by Hannah Fisher who studied biochemistry at Oxford and helped shape the early spirit style and cask programme.
Jim presented this dram and here’s what he had to say:
“This batch is matured in a mix of roughly 65% STR red wine casks and 35% ex-American whiskey barrels. STR stands for shaved, toasted and re-charred, a technique popularised by the late whisky consultant Jim Swan. He also helped advise on the early setup and spirit style at the distillery. Refreshing the inner surface of the cask creates more active oak, which helps bring out richer fruit flavours — things like peach and apricot alongside the citrus character of the spirit.”
Power Johns Lane 12yr : Presented by Dee
Some drams grab the audience, and the whisky chosen by Dee for the fifth dram REALLY did that, grabbing a huge share of the votes to clinch Dram Of The Night.
A cask strength 12yr old single pot still whiskey, mainly matured in first fill American bourbon casks with a small contribution from Oloroso sherry butts, from Midleton Distiller, this was bottled at 57.8% and is described as a richer, more intense version of the standard 46% John’s Lane release, often viewed as a high-value, authentic “distillate-driven” Irish whiskey.
Dee did a fantastic job of answering a huge raft of technical questions about Irish distilling as we got into pot stills, enzymes and yeast.
Official tasting notes
Nose:
Woodland aromas and dried tobacco along with treacle toffee, black peppercorns and dried herbs.
Taste:
Rich pot still spice with vanilla, manuka honey and dried apricot.
Finish:
Toasted oak wrapped with honey sweetness.
Cooper King Double Matured – Australian Tawny Into Peated : Abbie’s Words
For the last dram of our International Women’s Day 2026 tasting, we lined up a Cooper King Double Matured: Australian Tawny into Peated (58.4%). Head distiller Abbie has her hands a little full at the moment, but she had the last word of the tasting about her story and the dram:
In 2014, a desire to leave the rat race led myself and partner Chris to buy one-way tickets to Australia, in search of sun, sand and adventure. Whilst in Tasmania we stumbled upon a flourishing craft whisky scene. We became fascinated by these small producers and the quality of the whisky they were producing.
They inspired in us an absolute dedication to craftsmanship, the importance of honesty and transparency, and further reinforced our love of adventure. With a mission to bring our discoveries back to England, we gave up our established careers (as a scientist and an architect) and returned to my home county of Yorkshire in 2016. It is here we crowd-funded and entirely self-built an independent distillery from scratch. The adventure has continued at full throttle ever since.
I love that whisky is now my life. Whisky involves many industries – agriculture, engineering, technology, science, food, hospitality, to name a few – and at its best, it captures the essence of a place, the landscape and the people within it. It tells a story. It connects people to memories, to each other and to a community of wonderfully curious whisky enthusiasts…
Which bring us nicely onto this dram… This whisky holds a special place in our story; it’s matured in an Australian tawny cask from the very region in Tasmania where our journey began. Once the tawny imparted its deliciously intense fruit and spice, we moved the whisky into a refill bourbon cask – that previously held peated single malt whisky. The result is a rich, tart and spicy dram, jam-packed with dried orange, chocolate cherries and toffee, with whispers of coal fire, tobacco and wood smoke.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: chocolate-coated cherries, wood smoke and sea spray.
Taste: raisins, sweet malt, ginger and soft peat.
Finish: long and lingering with dried fruit and toffee.
Have a great night!
Abbie