Spirits In Beringen 2021

Each year I’m more than happy to visit Spirits in Beringen, the local whisky and spirits festival in my town, Beringen. What I like most about this festival is that this is really the place to taste some old and rare bottlings. And also for this edition, that was a fact.

Stijn Hiers was presenting his new book on whisky and already whispered that he is working on his next book which will be a trip through America, focusing on all local spirits. 

At the booth of “Whisky from Belgium”, Patrick showed me the first bottle of his range which will release 4 bottlings each year, for 10 years. This first whisky is 10 years old, distilled at Wave Distillery in Dinant. Aged on virgin oak and bottled at 61% ABV. Lots of honey and vanilla. Looking forward to the next bottles, because he will also use different finishes.

“Brugse Whisky Company” was the most interesting booth. They didn’t sell any bottles, they came to Beringen to gain some visibility. Their core business is ageing whisky on different small casks, adding flavours to create maximum result. More or less what Daniel Quanten is also doing. He made me taste a fantastic Cognac.

This year I also gave the whisky club a challenge. I wanted to taste a spirit that was exactly my age, distilled in 1968. Ivo Drabs came to the rescue with a fantastic Prunier Cognac. I expected the Cognac to be slightly sticky and sweet and with a tempered alcohol level. Not at all. The balance was just perfect and the Cognac still had a great cask strength of 48,8% ABV. Ivo started his business with the range of Cognacs from Vallein-Tercinier. He build his knowledge to the point that he wanted to target for pure quality at cask strength. He found this at Cognac Prunier. The whole range is at cask strength with Cognac from the best regions.

Spirits in Beringen did it again. They succeeded in surprising us with some great old and rare bottles. This year we also got to taste a (free!) festival bottling. I was already happy when I saw the Douglas Laing logo on top of the bottle. This Old Particular was a great whisky from Cameronbridge.

Looking forward to next year's edition. 

Disclaimer : All pictures and texts are copyrighted by Geert Conard and Esito Management & Communications unless stated otherwise in the article. While some items might have been gifted by the producer or distributor, these are in no way paid promotions or recommendations.