High-Point-pop-up-store1The 20th Annual Hopscotch Festival’s Grand Tasting Hall, last weekend, was great fun and we were thrilled to be the official on-site store. This event grows each year with more and more local breweries/distilleries, imported beer, international spirits agents and of course whisky. This was our first ever pop up store and we learned a lot.
 
The Grand Tasting Hall officially opened at 1:30 on Friday afternoon for the Trade Tasting component. We schmoozed with our industry friends and colleagues. The local bartenders seemed particularly impressed with the three flavours of Tatratea, a high test Slovakian tea based liqueur.
 
6pm Friday marked the public opening of the hall with some serious Scotch connoisseurs stopping by the store before tasting. They eagerly checked to see what was available; comparing reviews, prices notes on their phones.
Hopscotch-Festival-7Hopscotch is not only about Scotch. There were plenty of other distilled spirits on show in the hall as well. The most popular at our store were Flor De Cana 12 YO rum, Oliver BC’s Dubh Glass distillery’s excellent Noteworthy Gin and both the honey based Unruly Vodka and Shot in the Dark coffee liqueur from Courtney’s Wayward Distillery
 
Saturday afternoon started off with the first annual beer only tasting session. Many of our favourite BC breweries like Steel & Oak, 4 Mile, Yellow Dog, Dageraad, Bridge, Strange Fellows and Parallel 49 were out with their stalwart and seasonal brews. It was great to see the sometimes maligned Stanley Park brewery stepping up their game by pouring a cask ale; a delicious and thematically appropriate Sazerac Porter.
 
Saturday night is definitely when the party got into full swing. The hall forum was packed and excitement was high. We saw some risqué kilts, some foot high mohawks and some really serious whisky aficionados. The most buzzed about whiskies: The Balvenie 21 Year Old Portwood, Bunnahabhain 18 Year Old, Kilchoman Machir Bay, Spey Tenne, Aberfeldy 12 Year Old and of course the Nikkas.
 
We appreciated the opportunity to be more involved in this informative celebration of hops & malt and look forward to growing with Hopscotch next year. In the meantime, you can come down to our home location at 2769 East Hastings and browse our carefully curated selection of specialty and local spirits. Please don’t forget about Whisky Classique – January 17-19, 2016. Tickets to this special event would be a great holiday gift for your favourite whisky lover http://whiskyclassique.com/.
All of us at High Point Beer Wine Spirits will look forward to seeing you there as we take on our next pop up location as the Official Store of Whisky Classique at Science World.