Kaleidoscope - A Bar Review
Well, if nothing else, Kaleidoscope has to be the hardest whiskey bar to find in London. We spent 10 minutes or more looking for it in London’s Devonshire Square area. Here’s the key — it’s in the basement of Mac & Wild, a Scottish restaurant that has a huge sculpture of a stag outside. Find the stag, and you've found this bar. Once you enter Mac & Wild, the first thing you’ll see will be stairs going down to this basement. Head down and, voila, great scotch!
Atmosphere and Service: Kaleidoscope is the brand-new bar opened up by the Scotch Malt Whisky Society in London. Thus, it has a unique atmosphere and setup. The SMWS is a members’ club where you pay an annual fee and, in exchange, get access to single-cask releases sourced, bottled, and sold exclusively by SMWS. SMWS is basically a crowd-funded independent bottler of scotch, with deep relationships in the industry and the ability to get single casks from almost every distillery out there. The results all come in identical green glass bottles with the society's label, and they come with a numerical code that indicates what distillery produced the liquid inside. So, for example, Laphroaig is distillery 29, and all of the SMWS bottlings of Laphroaig are labeled 29.___, with the final number indicating the cask number. Each release also has a poetic name alluding to the nature of the whiskey inside, such as "Harmonious balance" or "Sweet smoke on the water." SMWS is selective about which barrels it takes, and its releases typically are aged between 10 and 20 years and are released at cask strength, so they tend to be a cut above the quality you'd find in wider distillery releases. Members who visit the bar get a discount, while the rest of us pay full price.
Unlike other whisky bars, Kaleidoscope serves exclusively SMWS whiskies. The major decorations of the bar are glass display cases featuring the most recent releases from the society. Behind the bar, there are hundreds of bottles of SMWS scotch, which produces a strange sight. Typically, when I go to a whisky bar, I'm used to seeing bottles of every shape and size, with a kaleidoscope of labels producing a sensory overload effect. Here, however, every bottle is identical in appearance, producing a sensation of order and elegance.
The array of nearly identical SMWS bottles in the nook leading down to the bar
Selection: As the description above indicates, this is a unique bar in that it doesn't have any scotches that you can find in your average liquor store. The bar had a wealth of SMWS's offerings, but they exist in their own miniature universe. SMWS sources from almost everyone, so you can readily find island single malts, smoky Islay scotches, and Highland, Lowland, and Speyside whiskies. As I said before, most distilleries are happy to sell casks to SMWS, although there are some exceptions. For instance, Lagavulin has a number in the SMWS code system, but to my knowledge, they rarely sell their barrels to independent bottlers. To be honest, you'll hardly notice the absence of some of those major players when faced with the wealth of scotches that SMWS offers.
Kaleidoscope bears a closer resemblance in some ways to a classy wine bar
Rare Bottles: From one perspective, all of the bottles here are rare. Each SMWS release is a single cask, so each expression has only 200-odd identical twins out in the world. The bottles you get to try here, in any given month or year, likely will have vanished from the world by the time you return. It makes each dram a special, self-contained experience.
I'll describe it in more detail in a later post, but one of the scotches we had was a 20-year old, cask-strength Laphroaig. Think that's a rare find? Try to get anything similar from the distillery itself. The most recent release that's close to that profile is Laphroaig 21 Cask Strength, which was $400+ when released and now commands four-digit prices.
Value: Considering what you're getting, this place is a fair value. Drams are not cheap here, and I don't think you'll find anything around 5 pounds per pour. The bottles are divided into categories identified letters, and those letters determine the price. For instance, a dram of F was 15-odd pounds, and that was the category of the Laphroaig we tried. Compared to what was in the glass, that price represented great value, particularly considering what analogous distillery releases would command.
The basic levels, A or B, were in the 6-8 pound range, if I recall correctly. Also, keep in mind, tips aren't customary in the UK and tax is, if I recall correctly, included. That basically negates the conversion from dollars, so getting a 15-pound drink isn't that different than getting a $15 drink but paying $4 in tax and tip.
***
Of the whiskey bars we tried in London, I'd put this one up at the top as a one-of-a-kind experience. I'll write up summaries of the two scotches that we had the pleasure of trying there tomorrow, but here's a little preview: SMWS selects and bottles some spectacular whiskies. For a whiskey fan, this is a must-visit stop in London. Kaleidoscope may be a bit tricky to find, but it's worth the effort.
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