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The City of Angels might be understood for the movie market and brilliant weather conditions, but it’s likewise the home to a group of dedicated whisky lovers who get together to taste drams and improve their spirits knowledge. The Los Angeles Whisky Club began with an easy idea– enjoying whisky with friends.
“I am a big fan of whisky and I love sharing it with a few friends, but I generally was buying more whisky than I was drinking,” says club founder Beks Opperman. “I really enjoy finding those special bottles and hearing the stories about them. I started the club because I wanted to be able to share, as my cupboards were getting full and it was time to drink more of it.”
Founded in 2019, the club started with 15 members. It has in fact thinking about that grown to 36– an increase that Opperman associates partially to the pandemic.“There was definitely a core group that came to every single tasting during the pandemic,” she states, including that they got 5 or 6 members beyond the Los Angeles place throughout that time, while tastings were held essentially.
When it relates to the discussions that follow the tastings, “We’re a really interactive group, and we try to encourage everyone to be interactive,” Opperman says. “Among the club’s only rules is ‘don’t be snobby.’ You can be opinionated and passionate, but do not ever put anyone down for having a various viewpoint than you. We’re about 50/50 men and women. I believe that also makes our club distinct. A lot of clubs are majority male.” She notes that the club also helps some local liquor stores to lead tastings.
A vital tenet of the club is that whatever is tasted blind, Opperman states.. “We taste blind so that we can have an actually honest point of view on what we in fact like.” Once they have really wound up the blind tasting, they expose what the whiskies are, and the club members then taste them a 2nd time.
As the club’s creator, Opperman takes the lead in acquiring whiskies for members to taste. “Primarily, I’m still doing all the buying,” she states. “I usually take a trip a fair bit. I bring back whiskies from traveling all around the world– Japan to the UK and other places– and after that a little bit of searching online. Often you purchase things at auction, often other club members will bring in bottles they’ve purchased while taking a trip, and we work them into the tasting.” She includes that the club likewise deals with some regional liquor stores to lead tastings.
The Los Angeles Whisky Club likewise gathers about every other month for “Clubhouse Nights,” Opperman states, when “members can purchase puts from any open bottles at our Club Bar, and the bottles offered differ depending on what we have left over from previous tastings. Members are allowed to bring up to 3 non-member visitors with them to a Clubhouse Night.” These events happened prior to the pandemic, however, Opperman adds that at press time the club was preparing to host its first post-pandemic Clubhouse Night for immunized members. “It’s fun because there’s a lot of memories like, ‘Oh, I remember this one from that tasting and I loved it’ or ‘I missed this tasting. I’m so happy I got to try it.’”
H/T WhiskeyAdvocate
