What a week it has been in France, firstly spending a lovely week in Burgundy, tasting and learning about wonderful Burgundy wines (more on that on @winelates), before an amazing weekend in Paris for Whisky Live! 😍🥃 Expectations for this year’s Whisky Live Paris was very high, given the amazing experience we had from last year’s show and this being its 20th anniversary! On the whole the expectation was well met, and here are some observations and highlights: 🔸The Scotch selection this year was reduced in favour for local spirits, rums. Slightly unexpected but welcomed. Last year was eye opening as we had the chance to enjoy some special Scotch rarely seen in UK whisky shows. It has been scaled back this year. We instead tried some impressive French whiskies. 🔸Speaking of the VIP area, this year’s edition focused on independent bottlings and LMDW exclusives. Highlights from Decadent Drinks, Hidden Spirits, LMDW, and Elixir 🔸Great discovery of French whiskies, LMDW exclusives Blavier, Amorik and Vilanova stood out. We left it a bit too late to explore the huge French spirit section on the main floor, but still tried some interesting things from Galaad and Pointe Blanche. 🔸Finally experienced the famed Cocktail Street after the show closed - wild and with awesome cocktails. Shout out to the Monkey Shoulder team prepared some tasty drinks on taps with various cocktail bars in France 🔸Food is amazing, and with a wide range of choice - WLP knows how to feed us, proper street food, probably should have gone for seconds 🔸And it was of course wonderful to catch up with many friends and familiar faces at the show and share some tasty drams together! However, a slight negative is the decision in some stands to only have 1 bottle for the whole weekend - often resulting in miniscule pours, so little you can barely taste the whiskies. It is slightly baffling to have only 1 bottle to share over the 3-day event, in probably the largest whisky show in Europe. Meaning sometimes you really have to fight for a dram, and that was far from enjoyable. 🤔 Anyway, please enjoy a snapshot of our time in Grand Halle de la Villette! See you next year! 😄 #sante 🥃