As we begin planning our inaugural Rhode Island Whisky Seminar and Tasting tentatively scheduled for early August 2012, we have to make some decisions. There are roughly a million different whiskies, more or less, from which to choose. Single Malt, Blended Malt, Bourbon, Rye, not to mention specific regional varieties like: Canadian, Japanese, Indian, New Zealand, French, Swiss, and so on.

In spite of all the global variations available to choose from for this inaugural seminar we’ll go back to the roots of Whisky by focusing on the 5 officially recognized whisky regions of Scotland – Campbeltown, Highlands, Islay, Lowlands and Speyside. Some argue that there in fact are 6 regions with the last one being the Island region – comprising all Scottish islands other than Islay. I’ll leave that discussion for a time when we all have a dram in our hand and time on our calendars..

Since 6 whiskies in a single tasting is beyond most people’s palates, for this tasting we’ll try to pick representative whiskies from each of the 5 main regions. We’ll save the Islands region for a separate region specific seminar where we can do a horizontal tasting across the region showing the diversity of the Islands region whiskies.

So if you have a whisky you’ve been wanting to try or a favorite from a region please post your suggestions in the comments section.