Whisky Subscription: Whisky Me

@whisky_me_ is a one of the older whisky tasting subscription club, with over 10,000 members thanks to  a gift from my wife, I count myself in them numbers!

Let's find out more.

Dubbed "A whisky club for the curious" Whisky Me charge £7.95 for a monthly 60ml pouch of whisky. They've been going since 2017 with over 10,000 members and over 100,000 pouches sent. In 2021 they secured investment of £75,000 from three of the dragons on Dragon's Den: Deborah Meaden, Tej Lalvani & Peter Jones.

It's a simple subscription service where you sign up, pay your money by the end of each month and receive a pouch on the 8th of the next. You can pause or cancel at any time. You can buy an annual membership paying for 11 months and get a month free. There are three membership options - Single Malt Scotch, World Whisky or one of each (where you obviously pay double). I was gifted the Single Malt Scotch subscription by my wife!

So what's makes it different?

Whisky Me's unique selling point is it's pouch:

• Using The Pouch means we can deliver the best possible whiskies at the lowest possible price. They weigh less, pack smaller, never need bubble wrapping and always fit through your letterbox – which is more convenient for you than a trip to the collection office.
• And there's some reassuringly great news for your tastebuds too: The Pouch has zero effect on the taste of the whisky.
• Glass bottles produce more CO2 to make and to ship. They also need extra packaging like bubble wrap to stop them breaking. At only 130 microns thick, The Pouch is 20x thinner than a glass bottle, they require less water, produce less greenhouse gas, and use 5x less abiotic material (that's minerals and fossil fuels to you and me), compared to a 6cl glass bottle. If we used bottles, we'd be raising our carbon footprint right at a time when we should be doing the opposite.
• The Pouch cap and nozzle are recyclable as household plastic. The pouch itself is made of PET and that's recyclable too, through specialist services. BUT:  For every twelve empties you send back to us, we’ll reward you with one whisky-filled pouch. We will take care of the recycling through our partners at TerraCycle, and you’ll get a complimentary dram for your troubles. Win-win.

Each month you'll receive a 60ml sample of either a Scotch Malt Whisky, World Whisky or one of each and an information card. There's also further information about that month's dram on their website and a live tasting events with distillery ambassadors.

So what about the whisky?

Whisky Me say:

"We're not interested in being snobby or elitist about whisky. We know there's no such thing as a typical whisky drinker and we're here to prove it, by dropping drams of the world's greatest whiskies through as many letterboxes as possible."

As I said my wife bought me a 5 month subscription as a gift, I activated it at the end of January and the first pouch arrived as promised on the 8th February is a letterbox friendly envelope. The whisky was Bladnoch's Vinaya at 46.7% ABV normally costing around £50 a bottle.

I found the pouch pretty robust, easy to open and pour. I'll review the whisky in a separate blog.

An unusual dram and an interesting start - I can't wait to see what I get next month!