My friend Adam, with whom I worked at my old job, met us for drinks Friday afternoon. Given the heat, it was the perfect occasion for me to try my first Pimm's, and it was a very refreshing drink. It was not, however, a scotch. For that, Adam urged me to drop in to Berry Bros. & Rudd, and seek out the salesman with the ruddy complexion and an eagerness to pour out a dram or two to sample. So today Suzie and I returned to St. James's Street and paid a visit to Berry Bros. It did not disappoint. Of the three or four salespeople, it was obvious which one was our guy--Ed (that's him, below).
Ed graciously spent at least 45 minutes with me, pouring out several samples of unique and hard-to-find scotches. As Ed explained, Berry Bros. goes 'round to the many distilleries in Scotland and selects the finest individual casks of single malt, buying the casks for themselves and bottling the whisky under their name. These particular casks are chosen for their quality and character. Thus, as Ed pointed out, while a distillery attempts to aim for consistency of product for their customers year in and year out by carefully blending the various thousands of casks produced each year, Berry Bros. specifically tastes and purchases casks which meet their criteria for their limited production boutique bottlings.
Interesting bit of trivia--Berry Bros. is housed in a storefront hundreds of years old (the back wall dates from the 1500s), with creaky floors and not a plumb or square line in the joint. In fact, apparently during the Blitz a German bomb exploded up the street from the shop, with the result that Berry Bros. storefront was pushed several inches further out into the street than the neighboring buildings due to the concussion from the blast. But back to our story...
So it was that Suzie, happy to rest her feet for a bit, watched as I sampled dram after dram, with Ed happily opening bottle after bottle. Needless to say, I was somewhat sozzled after all his help. And that bottle--which I at first had admonished him was way out of my price range--became more and more reasonable the more I sampled. In the end, in my whisky-clarified state I was able to lucidly rationalize that (a) I had easily consumed £10-20 worth of fine whisky and (b) I'd get the VAT back at the airport, so...long story short, my bag is slightly heavier for the trip home, and yes, it's the spendy bottle. Job well done, Ed.
