“What’s your favourite whiskey?” It’s a question Paul Anderson hears all the time, which is not totally unexpected, considering the owner of Indigo stocks more than 800 varieties of whiskey in his Napier restaurant.“My answer is usually the same,” he says. “I tell people it depends on what mood I’m in and what time of day it is.”After hosting several whiskey tastings at Indigo, where samples from different countries, regions and distilleries were presented, Paul decided to do something different. He has named the September 13 event Paul’s Treasure Trove because it will feature six of his favourites.
“Rather than being a specific theme in terms of area or type of whiskey, it’s what I would see as some of my favourites, the ones I really like,” he says. “I’ve taken information from the other tastings and what I’ve enjoyed and then matched them to the different occasions where you have whiskey.”
Paul says the whiskeys he has chosen are a varied range.“There will be one of my favourite peaty whiskeys, one of my favourite Irish whiskeys, one of my favourite easy-drinking whiskeys,” he says. “If I want to have a whiskey at 5pm and really enjoy drinking it, there will be one of those, as well as my favourite whiskey for finishing off the night.
“It’s that kind of approach – my favourite whiskeys for specific times and moods.”It was a challenge to narrow the selections down to only six but Paul says they are all “high-quality, expensive whiskies that people will, hopefully, savour and enjoy”.
“Some people hate the peaty ones but, at a certain time of night for me, nothing beats a really good peaty whiskey. But at 5pm on a Friday, it’s not the type of whiskey I’d ever have because it just overwhelms the taste buds.
“If it’s cold, some of the sherry-based whiskies are really nice.”Choosing what would be included in Paul’s Treasure Trove was a labour of love but he says it was worth the effort, if only because he can now reel off the six names when the inevitable question arises.
Although, he cautions, that list is subject to change at a moment’s notice.
“It’s like anything – something is the best one until you have the next best one,” he says. “That’s the great thing about whiskey – there’s always something new to try.
“There is always something better out there. You never get bored.”
