Whisky and Wine Tastings: Travel That Lets You Taste

The designated driver ruins the point

A tasting is a comparative exercise. You are meant to work through a flight, revisit the second pour after the fourth, and argue about which one you preferred. Somebody who is driving afterwards cannot do that in any meaningful way, and asking a friend to be that person turns a good evening into a favour someone is owed.

Booking a car removes the awkward conversation about who is driving before it starts. Everyone at the table participates on the same terms, which is the only sensible basis for the evening. It also spares whoever would otherwise have volunteered from spending three hours holding a glass of tap water.

London tasting rooms and evening events

Central London has plenty of options: merchant tasting rooms with a cellar downstairs, whisky bars running guided flights, restaurant wine dinners and one-off events held in members' clubs. Most start in the early evening and run two to three hours, and many are in exactly the sort of narrow street where parking is impossible and stopping is restricted.

For these, the arrangement is straightforward. A set-down nearby, an open return, and a message when the last pour has been discussed. The car handles the part of the evening that would otherwise involve a cold walk to a station. Tasting rooms tend to be in cellars and basements, and coming up into a February street is not the moment to start looking for a cab.

Vineyards in Sussex, Kent and Hampshire

English sparkling wine has made day trips out of London genuinely worthwhile, with established producers across the South Downs, the Kent countryside and Hampshire. A vineyard visit typically involves a tour, a seated tasting and often lunch, and it takes most of a day once travel is included.

The roads are the reason to be driven. These estates sit down narrow lanes, tours run to a fixed start time, and the drive back over the Downs after a tasting is precisely the drive nobody should be making. Booking two producers in one day is possible but ambitious, and we will say honestly whether the timings work.

• Tour start times, which are fixed and often sold in advance
• A realistic gap between two producers if you plan both
• Lunch booked separately, since not every estate serves food
• Boot space for the cases that inevitably come home with you

Distillery visits and longer journeys

Whisky takes you further. English and Welsh distilleries are increasingly worth a day out, and a Speyside or Islay itinerary is a multi-day undertaking with ferries and long single-track roads rather than an afternoon. Both are perfectly plannable, but they are different propositions and should be discussed as such.

For anything beyond a day trip, the practical questions are overnight arrangements, how many distilleries a day realistically allows, and how much is being brought home. Two or three visits in a day is comfortable; five is a list rather than a plan. Distances in the Highlands and Islands are also longer than the map suggests once single-track roads and ferry timetables are taken into account.

Getting the purchases home

Everyone underestimates this. A group of four returning from a vineyard with a case each needs boot space that a saloon simply does not have once the passengers' own bags are in it. Cases travel badly on a rear seat and worse on a lap.

Tell us how many are travelling and whether you expect to buy, over WhatsApp on +44 (0) 7775 554 848, and the vehicle can be chosen with the return journey in mind rather than only the outward one. It is the most common oversight on a vineyard day and by some distance the easiest one to avoid.

Plan your chauffeur journey

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