The final weekend of the 2026 York Food Festival saw us once again reunite with Love Cheese of Gillygate for:
LOVE WHISKY?
LOVE CHEESE?
IV
Featuring … well you can guess:
A fantastic line-up of whiskies with a hand-picked selection of cheeses!
We’ll say a bit about each combination but first the line-up.
- 🥃 Filey Bay Flagship Marrying Strength from The Spirit of Yorkshire (50.1%, £70) paired with 🧀 Yoredale Old Roan
- 🥃 Titanic Distillers 9 Years Single Grain Whisky (42%, £69.95) paired with 🧀 Maida Vale Soft Cheese
- 🥃 Fragrant Drops Glentauchers 11 Year Old Château Des Laurets Barrique (64.2%, £74.95) paired with 🧀 Affineur Walo Red Wine Farmer
- 🥃 TALU Oloroso Cask Whiskey ‘The Kindred’ (43%, £68) paired with 🧀 Burt’s Blue Cheese
- 🥃 Cooper King Smoked Cask: Peat-Smoked Oak (56.1%, £115) paired with 🧀 Charcoal Cheese
🥃 Whisky of the night as voted by attendees was the Cooper King Smoked Cask
🧀 Cheese of the night as voted by attendees was the Red Wine Farmer
🥃+🧀 Combo of the night was the Titanic 9yr grain with the Maida Vale
It was fantastic to bring together a selection of whisky-first lovers keen to get more into cheese, cheese-lovers wanted to try whisky with their cheese and everyone in between to celebrate great whisky and great cheese as part of the food festival.
Some shout-outs:
👋John, a regular Love Cheese tasting attendee for guessing the cheese lineup.
🙏Cordi from Love Cheese for her fine cheese presenting skills and all the hard prep work by her and Jordan!
🙏York Whisky Club regulars for their help setting up and packing down
🙏Royal Mile Whiskies for donating the Fragrant Drops Glentauchers 11yr (we’re very pleased they opened a store in York!)
🙏Billy and Alana from TALU for the English whiskey (with an e!)
🥃 Filey Bay Flagship Marrying Strength from The Spirit of Yorkshire paired with 🧀 Yoredale Old Roan
First in our tasting was the Filey Bay Flagship, but not as you know it – a new for 2026 ‘Marrying Strength’ release at 50.1%.
In their words:
“What is marrying strength? Its a term we use behind the scenes all the time at our distillery, but perhaps not a term most whisky-loving folk would know. Sitting between cask strength (usually 57-60% straight from the cask) and bottling strength (usually 45-48% for us), we have marrying strength.”
“Before bottling and final reduction of our classic Flagship to its bottling strength at 46%, it spends long periods of time at what we affectionately know as marrying strength, allowing the whisky to harmonise, a gentle and controlled slow reduction as we take it down from cask strength to bottling strength.”
Regular York Whisky Club attendees had not tried this before and were keen to get stuck into that and the accompanying Yoredale Old Roan served by Love Cheese.
“Made by Ben & Sam Spence, this is a simple cheese with a classic flavour. The milk for this cheese travels from a local farm straight into the Spence Families garage/ cheesemaking room! The flavour is as traditional and wholesome as how it’s made – creamy, bold, smooth and crumbly – what more could you want from a Dale Cheese?”
🥃 Titanic Distillers 9 Years Single Grain Whisky paired with 🧀 Maida Vale Soft Cheese
When Belfast-based Titantic Distillers exhibited at our summer festival, they hadn’t yet released their first whiskey (they have now!) and were showcasing their skills with a few bottlings including this 9yr old grain that’s bounced around Rye, Muscatel and Madeira casks.
Jasper and Jim’s first reactions when trying it were:
“Oooh, that’s lovely. It would go fantastic with cheese 🧀”
At York Whisky Club, we like to make things happen so ordered one for this tasting. This was paired with a salty, creamy, buttery classic – Maida Vale – which you can eat, rind and all.
The 100% melt-in-the-mouth combo was TOO DELICIOUS and this scooped our pairing (🥃+🧀) of the night.
When we ordered the whisky (42%, £69.95), it came in a presentation case with the cutest petrol can style hipflask we’ve ever seen – this was raffled between the attendees who donated during checkout to our nominated charity St Leonard’s Hospice – we raised £90 in the tasting.
🥃 Fragrant Drops Glentauchers 11 Year Old Château Des Laurets Barrique paired with 🧀 Affineur Walo Red Wine Farmer
For our paired whisky tastings, sometimes we start with the whisky, other times with the accompaniment.
For our 3rd spot, we knew the Affineur Walo Red Wine Farmer Cheese from Love Cheese had to go in the tasting as we’ve tried and love it before, and, unsurprisingly, it scooped 🧀cheese of the night:
“Similar to a gruyere and washed in red wine makes for a winning combination! Made in Switzerland it has all the features that we love from the swiss cheeses, with a rich flavour that grows in your mouth. It’s sweet and floral with a subtle smokiness and long finish that hits in all the right places.”
So what red-wine finish whisky could go with it?
Utterly delighted that Royal Mile Whiskies chose to open a shop in York recently (location), we popped in and a Fragrant Drops Glentauchers 11 Year Old Château des Laurets Barrique seemed just the choice.
Appreciating our taste, RMW were kind enough to donate 1/284 bottles fully matured in a single first fill Château des Laurets Barrique for 11 years.
Their faith was not mislaid as Cordi, the cheese host, and Jasper, the whisky host found that the cheese, whisky and chutney could be ‘chomped’ together to form a taste sensation similar to a ‘red wine jus’ served alongside meat whilst fine dining.
🥃 TALU Oloroso Cask Whiskey ‘The Kindred’ paired with 🧀 Burt’s Blue Cheese
In the month of the English Whisky GI announcement, we thought we should try a new English distillery – or is that English Whiskey?
Yes, new kid on the block TALU has an ‘e’ and this was their Oloroso 8yr old – aged for 5 years aged in level four charred American white oak before a 3 year sherry finish.
‘The Kindred’ (43%, £68)
“Aged in new level four charred American white oak barrels & finished in first-fill Oloroso Sherry hogshead casks. This expression is rich, rounded & full of character. The roasted, malty profile of our rye, barley & maize mash bill joins with deep sherry richness, in both flavour & natural colour, revealing layers of candied dates, cherry jam & dark chocolate. The rich, berry hues dance in the warm depths of this whiskey that pulls only from the first-fill Oloroso hogshead in harmony with our signature whiskey. “
We owe them a rematch (separate review to follow) as Burt’s Blue with its ‘bloomy rind of greenish, grey Penicillin Roqueforti mould’ didn’t quite showcase the spirit in the way that we’d hoped. Bad Burt.
(Although the blue cheese fans in the room were more taken.)
The rye/barley/maize mash bill is a new one on us and alongside trying this again, we’re going to try their other two releases.
🥃 Cooper King Smoked Cask: Peat-Smoked Oak paired with 🧀 Charcoal Cheese
In our Dream Drams charity tasting last December, Cooper King Distillery scooped Dream Dram 2025 with the ‘Super Smoky’ component of their Smoked Cask release.
Even though this Peat-Smoked Oak, Single Malt Whisky (56.1%, £115) sold out long ago, our fine planning had one in a cupboard waiting for a tasting.
Was it as nice as we remember in its retail form?
Of course it was – and it beat our 2nd whisky by one vote to secure 🥃 dram of the night.
So what cheese could go with that?
Well, do you love 🖤 black cheese?
When we spotted that on the Love Cheese website, given the food-lovers’ dream that is the York Food Festival we had to go there:
“This mature cheddar is a creamy delicacy with the added intrigue of being completely black. Charcoal Cheese was the winner of the ‘Best New Idea’ at the Farm shop and Deli show in 2014. This truly unique cheese is made with charcoal from the Featherstone mines in Yorkshire, mixed with a wonderfully creamy mature Cheddar.”