Wine has always been the prefered choice of drink for romantic picnics and dinners. This, I believe, stems mainly from mainstream media -movies, music and TV – potrayals of wine as the drink for romantic evenings. Closer home, we have events like Blankets and Wine that have clearly borrowed heavily from this narrative. But thanks to the Love Whisky Festival, we do not have to be confined to the same narrative any more. Over the weekend, whisky lovers were introduced to the first ever Whisky Picnic outside Europe – Whisky Picnic Nairobi. From the onset, the ambience was set with Maasai shukas, a baberque and a live band. Instead of wine, revelers would be sharing bottles of whisky instead.
Whisky Picnic co-founder, Nick Ravenhall, was also in attendance and gave us a brief history of the concept and idea behind the event. According to him, whisky has always been viewed as a serious drink with events such as whisky tastings being seen as indulgences for the upper class. Together with his bestfriend, they set out to change how people viewed and enjoyed their whisky by having an event where guys could just sit back in a relaxed environment and have fun. From an initial group of close friends the festival grew in number to over 700 people at the latest picnic.
The event in Nairobi was set to start at 12pm but, apart from media guys and organisers, most people started arriving at around 2pm. For a ticket one was afforded a bottle of single malt whisky, which would be blended in a barrel to make the Love Whisky Nairobi 2014 Blend, and a selection of food from the barbeque.
The numbers grew as the time progressed and several pours into the barrel were made as we listened to awesome oldies from the live band and had our fill of meat, samosas and glasses of whisky and cocktails. At about 7pm, the barrel was opened and the blended whisky poured into branded bottles for guys to take home.
Whisky bottles are slowly finding their ways into the tables and lifestyles of revelers in Kenya and the EABL love whisky festival aims to drive more and more people to join the club. From the showings at the events held thus far, this is working and as more people started appreciating the different types of whiskies we hope they will also appreciate the history and culture behind the drink.
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