Balvenie Master Class: A Scotch and Seafood Pairing

I have a pleasure to join several Unilocal friend for this one special night to taste the Single Malt Whisky from Balvenie. This is rare raw craft that you can find in this world. The Balvenie Distillery is now located in the Dufftown Scotland. If you are serious whisky drinker, you may want to book a trip to tour the distillery. Please make sure minimum 2 hour for the whole tour. You will meet the long time employees or craftsmen there. These are the people who are serious and great skill on their craft.
We like to thank the Balvenie host this free event tonight for us to know more about the whisky. I have not try a single malt until tonight. The oldest one we try is the 21 years old Portwood. This whisky pretty much can be rubbing a bit into neck and evaporate whisky perfume. I watch the Antony Bourdain special episode on the Raw Crafts visited this place and explain the magic to make the whisky and they are very cool.
Tonight we have a chance to try 6 high end whisky pair with the seafood. The seafood is great to my knowledge. I learn the oyster add the whisky make the taste even lift up another level experience. Wow. Try whisky then the Wahoo Tartare then reverse the order of the sequence is different appreciation of the food. Single malt whisky is really great.
The only downside of this event is take too long and the food did not fill up my stomach. However, this is a great experience that I have with the master class. Just shorten the explanation and let me taste. Love to add the whisky to the tiramisu and taste. Yummmmmm

We had an awesome time at the Balvenie Master Class: Scotch and Seafood pairing! Special thanks to Katie from Unilocal,Sea Salt Grill Staff, and Malt Master Lorne Cousin for an awesome event! Originally, the Balvenie Master Class debuted in San Francisco as a Unilocal Elite event but it ended up being a last minute addition to the Unilocal Schedule so it was open to anyone to attend and not an offiicial Unilocal elite but I’ll still count it as only Unilocalers were there and only Unilocalers knew about this event. We had 6 amazing unique scotches from Balvenie that paired well with each seafood dish, including the dessert. Our Scottish host from Balvenie, Malt Master Lorne Cousin, explained to us in great detail the differences between each scotch and how they were made and aged.
Fun Scotch facts: The coining of the phrase, «the real McCoy» came from Captain McCoys finer Balvenie barrel aged scotches that many Americans sought after in the early prohibition days over the typical non barrel-​aged whiskeys. Double Wood simply means aged in ex-​bourbon casks before being finished in sherry casks.
My favorite scotch of the evening was the 14 year old Carribean Cask because it was the sweetest of the samplings, followed by the 21 year old Portwood (winner of the spirit of the year award), 17 year old Doublewood, 2 types of 15 year old single barrel, and the 12 year old single barrel.
The 4 courses of seafood and 1 course of dessert provided by sea salt grill was amazing. The Oyster medley, wahoo peekytoe crab tartare, octopus, big eye Hawaiian tuna tartare W beets, & Tiramisu were all very tasty. The Balvenie master class was held at Sea Salt Grill at the Sundial Plaza in Downtown St Pete. There is no private parking lot on site but we were able to find street parking about 1 block away. Sea Salt Grill has a an awesome chic décor with modern overhead lighting, fresh fish on ice at the entrance, fisherman knots in the bathroom, a huge floor to ceiling 2 story wine rack, and cool comfy leather booths.
Cons: When we first arrived, there was no one from Balvenie to give us any direction other than, «wait at the patio». The Balvenie Master Class event was supposed to only run 1.5−2 hours but ended up running over by an hour. With a long drive home to Tampa, it ended up being kind of a late evening, and we left still hungry so had to have a near midnight snack to hold us over but we still had a great time.