August Outturn 2024 Ambassador’s Address
This year is our fifth anniversary with BASIK Chocolates and the chocolate flavour scientist Krsna Raj. Five years! How time flies when you’re having fun in flavour.
I will admit, when I first met Krsna, we didn’t technically “meet” as this whole thing really kicked off at the beginning of a global pandemic. We met on a video call, and Krsna’s energy was infectious. As I’m sure many of you will know from his events with us, he has this incredible passion for cocoa and creations in flavour that have seriously warped our brains over and over. But I’ll also admit, I had a level of scepticism that this wouldn’t all work. I’d tried whisky & chocolate pairings before, and while nothing really failed in the past, nothing really ‘popped’ either. I had never had a pairing that really blew my mind, or that I thought was worth remarking on.
Then, early in the process of working with Krsna in 2020, he started listing out ingredients he was experimenting with to pair with the whiskies we’d sampled for him, and my scepticism turned into legitimate worry. He started listing things off like white soy sauce, Japanese matcha powder, dried mushrooms, finger limes, and others. What on Earth was going on now?!
But… all worry instantly turned into elation when first sampled ahead of the virtual tasting. He’d done it. He’d created a true “1+1=3” moment that we’ve talked about before. Where the combination of the whisky plus the bonbon had equalled more than the sum of both. In that first virtual, Krsna’s energy to find flavour pairings like no other had permanently been painted on our memories. The member feedback from that one event was so overwhelmingly positive, that we absolutely had to collaborate in subsequent years. Fast forward to 2024, and this is our 5th anniversary of working with Krsna from BASIK and we’re so excited to see what he comes up with this year.
Outside of this, we’re of course releasing a whole slew of amazing panel-approved single casks to enjoy, in this flavoursome and diverse August Outturn. Elsewhere in this month’s offering:
- A Malt of the Month that has been incredibly well-received from the whole team (and even early member feedback).
- A special Whisky & Alement selection, the third release in their SMWS exclusives they’ve picked out personally.
- A member giveaway, all by just photographing (or video-graphing) your favourite whisky & chocolate moments (with SMWS whisky, of course).
Cheers!
Matt Bailey
Branch Director
This article is featured in August 2024 Outturn — bottles will be available to purchase on Friday the 2nd of August at midday AEST exclusively to members of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Not a member? Click here to learn more about the world’s most colourful whisky club.
