Getting ready to celebrate Scotland’s national poet? The SMWS can help with that – with our guide to how to throw a great Burns Supper, along with the best whisky.
What other poet can you think of who is celebrated not only for their written work, but in song, music, food and most importantly whisky? We should all give thanks for the extraordinary life and work of Robert Burns, the ploughman poet whose life and work is remembered on or around 25 January, the anniversary of his birth in 1759.
The Burns Supper has now been held since a group of the poet’s friends held the first gathering a few years after his death at the age of only 37. It’s now a worldwide event and has grown to include certain key elements. But as a maverick himself, we’re confident Burns would have approved of any form of celebration – as long as it includes a few drams.
If you can’t make it to one of the Society’s official events, why not organise a Burns Supper of your own? You can pick and choose between what elements to include, but the key points to consider are:
Decide who’s going to be master (or mistress) of ceremonies: it helps to have someone appointed to keep the evening running smoothly and make the appropriate introductions.
Prepare a haggis: it’s hard to imagine a Burns Supper without Scotland’s national dish, served with neeps (turnip) and tatties (potatoes). If the ingredients are too much for some delicate stomachs, there’s always a vegetarian option.
Address the haggis: no great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race should be consumed unaddressed. Even if you don’t understand every word, a passionately delivered Address to a Haggis gets the evening well underway.
Plan some speeches: if you’re going to properly celebrate Burns the poet, you should have someone prepared to deliver the Immortal Memory, a tribute to his life and work. For a bit of fun, try to persuade your guests to deliver both a Toast to the Lassies, and of course, the right to reply from one of your female guests.
Poetry is not optional: you might not be able to persuade anyone to recite all 224 lines of Tam O’Shanter, Burns’s most famous epic poem. But there are plenty more to choose from, with more than a few whisky references as well. For his description of barley’s journey from field to glass, look no further than John Barleycorn, which ends:
‘Twill make a man forget his woe;
‘Twill heighten all his joy;
‘Twill make the widow’s heart to sing,
Tho’ the tear were in her eye.’
Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne’er fail in old Scotland!
WHAT TO DRINK
Whatever form your celebrations take, you need the right whisky, and there’s an appropriate dram for each stage of your Burns Supper. Here’s what we recommend:
To pipe in the haggis
Get your evening underway by welcoming in the haggis to the sound of the pipes. We can’t all get Pipe Major Iain Grant at our own Burns Supper – he’ll be busy at The Vaults – but he recommends a recording of either the Burns standard Is There for Honest Poverty (A Man’s a Man for A‘That) or a non-Burns work celebrating the man, The Star o’ Rabbie Burns. Have your guests ready to raise a glass of whisky from our Sweet, Fruity & Mellow flavour profile, such as our special Burns bottling Cask No. 7.195: If Rabbie Burns did afternoon tea.
To go with your meal
There may well be a drop of whisky in your haggis already, but you can enhance its peppery, spicy flavours with a dram from our Spicy & Sweet profile such as Cask No. 13.50: Cajun sweet potato fries. You could pour it over the haggis, but we’d recommend savouring it from the glass.
To go with the speeches
Depending on who’s delivering them, these could go on for a while, so make sure your guests are well topped up with a soothing post-dinner dram from our Deep, Rich & Dried Fruits flavour profile, such as Cask No. 63.44: Deep soul medicine.
To end the night
A rousing chorus of Burns’s Auld Lang Syne is traditional, and what better to round off an unforgettable evening than a warming Peated whisky. Look out for Cask No. 66.112: Smoky, sweet, spicy, salty popcorn.
Find the perfect whisky for your own Burns Supper by visiting our latest Outturn
The Scotch Malt Whisky Society has been named Independent Bottler of the Year in Whisky Magazine’s prestigious Independent Bottlers’ Challenge (IBC) competition.
The SMWS has concluded a wonderful year of recognition for its single cask, single malts by winning the title of Independent Bottler of the Year in Whisky Magazine’s Independent Bottlers’ Challenge competition. The Society also won the awards for Independent Bottler of the Year for Campbeltown, Speyside and Grain whiskies.
The IBC award demonstrates the extremely important role that independent bottlers play within the whisky industry, offering consumers expressions from distilleries where ‘house’ bottlings are rare or non-existent, as well as single cask and limited-edition releases at unusual ages and a range of strengths.
The Independent Bottler of the Year award concludes an extremely successful year for the Society, with a suite of prizes in a range of international competitions, including The Luxury Masters awards, the IWSC, International Spirits Challenge, the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, the Ultimate Spirits Challenge, and the Scotch Whisky Masters.
“This year has been one of the busiest and most successful in The Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s history, and winning the overall title of Independent Bottler of the Year is fantastic recognition of the outstanding quality of the whisky we offer our members,” said Kai Ivalo, spirits director at the SMWS.
“We go to great lengths to source for our members the very best casks from a wide range of distilleries and offer a huge variety of bottlings in our monthly Outturns.
“Winning the overall title, as well as gaining recognition for the best bottlings in the individual Campbeltown, Speyside and Grain categories, is a great endorsement for what we do and demonstrates the consistent excellence of our single cask, single malts.”
To access the Society’s award-winning whiskies, join up now by visiting www.smws.com/whisky-club-membership
Here are all the bottles that helped the Society win the overall title of Independent Bottler of the Year 2017.
SPEYSIDE
Winner, Independent Bottler of the Year
12 Years & Under: Silver medal winner
36.128 Moroccan afternoon tea
13-20 Years Old: Gold medal winner
35.174 The river of joy
Egg custard with a touch of gravelly minerality. Sharper orchard fruit notes build, along with a pinch of candied lemon.
Silver medal winners: 9.110 Sense of sophistication, 9.116 Boozy fruit trifle
21 Years & Over: Gold medal winners
9.107 Intriguing adventures
Meaty notes mingle with freshly cut grass and tarragon cream.
35.177 Caramelised fruit and nut medley
Perfumed and pokey. Sultanas and sugared raisins with baked apples.
Silver medal winner: 39.135 Magical and heavenly
ISLAY
12 Years & Under: Silver medal winner
10.118 Enthralling pink and peat intensity
LOWLAND
13 to 20 Years Old: Silver medal winner
5.58 Contrapuntal harmony
21 Years & Over: Bronze medal winner
50.92 Sipping sherry in the potting shed
NON-SCOTCH
12 Years & Under: Silver medal winners
134.1 Exotic rainforest fruits, 133.1 Speakeasy sneaky peeky
CAMPBELTOWN
Winner, Independent Bottler of the Year
12 Years & Under: Gold medal winner
93.72 BBQ outside a sweetie factory
Big wonderful sweet nose then BBQ coals with honey-coated chicken just caramelising. Salt and chilli chips with prawns.
Silver medal winner
93.76 Beurre blanc and blue steak
13-20 Years Old: Silver medal winner
93.73 Seaside chillies with syrup
21 Years & Over: Gold medal winner
93.78 Like a vintage dessert wine
Seriously gentle and delicately oily, almost sticky like sauternes wine. Rich fruits, melon and mango. A little oak grip.
GRAIN
Winner, Independent Bottler of the Year
12 Years & Under: Gold medal winner
G15.1 Lead us to temptation
Perfectly pleasant, grassy vanilla notes dominate, with cracked black pepper.
13-20 Years Old: Silver medal winner
G9.3 Fruit, spice and all things nice
21 Years & Over: Silver medal winner
G1.15 Could pacify a mob
