The first time I met the man who would become my fiancé, I mentioned that I wanted to be proposed to with a bottle of whisky from my birth year. And three years later, he proposed with that exact bottle! Here’s the story of Alex’s whisky proposal with the 1986 Bruichladdich Rare Cask.
A Bruichladdich Whisky Event Leads to Love
Alex and I met during a business meeting about Bruichladdich Distillery. As the Chicago president of the Women Who Whiskey club, I was organizing an event featuring Bruichladdich Distillery (one of my favorites!) and wanted to feature their gin in addition to whisky. So I contacted the Fever Tree Mixer representative (Alex), about partnering on a gin and tonic welcome cocktail. Then we met with the Bruichladdich representative to taste test Fever Tree’s mixers with The Botanist gin.
Reaching out to Alex to partner on an event seemed like such a small, inconsequential decision at the time. Yet it turned out to be a big, monumental decision that would affect the rest of my life.
During the meeting, I mentioned that one day I’d like to be proposed to with a bottle of Bruichladdich whisky from my birth year — an extremely rare, hard-to-find, and very expensive whisky. That way my partner and I could drink it every year on our anniversary, reflecting how the whisky and us as a couple have evolved over time. I was extremely single and thought the meeting was business as usual, so the comment was nothing more than talking about the distillery.
Alex and I had a great time together and decided to go to dinner a few weeks later. I thought we were going as friends, but halfway through post-dinner cocktails he asked if it could be a date. I said yes.
That date led to an immediate and intense love that quickly led to moving in together, plenty of ups and downs and trials and tribulations, and traveling near and far. We even visited Bruichladdich Distillery on Islay, Scotland together, celebrating the whisky that brought us together.
The Whisky Proposal
One day, more than three years after meeting, we were getting ready for opening night at the opera in Chicago. I walked out to the living room and saw it: the bottle of 1986 Bruichladdich whisky I mentioned the first time we met. And there was Alex, in his tux, bent down on one knee with a gorgeous ring in his hand.
I have no recollection of what he said. Something about being here, in our home, the place where we share our love, and getting ready for the opera, one of the many things we love to do together, and knowing that he’s never been more sure of anything in his life. “So will you marry me?” he asked. I said yes.
Months before, when we talked about engagement rings, Alex said it wasn’t fair that only the woman wears an engagement ring signaling she’s off the market. He thought it was only equal if he wore one, too. So he picked out his wedding ring back then. Moments after saying yes, I hunted down his ring, raced into the living room and bent down on one knee, opera dress and all.
I have no recollection of what I said. Something about knowing almost instantly that he was The One, about how we’ve been through sickness and health and seen each other at better and worse already, and how there’s no one else I’d want to spend my life with. “So will you marry me?” I asked. He said yes.
Despite the whisky proposal, we rushed off to the opera, with no time to open the whisky.
Tasting the 1986 Bruichladdich Whisky
Since we didn’t open the 1986 Bruichladdich when Alex proposed, we wanted to wait for a special day to open it. Our wedding photographer, the incredible Stephanie Lang, suggested we open it during our engagement photo shoot so that the experience was documented.
So during our engagement photos on the shore of Lake Michigan with the backdrop of Chicago behind us, we opened the bottle. It was a super windy day — note how we are death-gripping the bottle so it didn’t blow away! It was a genius idea; now we have photographic evidence of us tasting the spectacular whisky, commemorating how we met and how Alex proposed, all in photos.
The Bruichladdich 1986 is part of Bruichladdich’s Rare Cask Series, which celebrates a selection of unique casks from a lost generation. Distilled in 1986 and filled in Oloroso sherry butts, this whisky sat untouched in Bruichladdich Distillery’s loch-side warehouse for 26 years — until 2012. Then it was filled into Pedro Ximinez butts from Fernando de Castilla for an additional 4 years. Only 7 casks from 1986 were bottled, at 44.6% ABV.
Tasting Notes: On the nose there’s notes of nutty raisins, candied walnuts, buttery pastry coffee, and chocolate, with hints of tropical fruit. On the palate, there’s notes of sweet candied walnuts and buttery pastry, orange zest, and toffee.
Whiskily Ever After
To celebrate getting engaged, Alex and I went to France. We ate our way through Paris, engrossed in World War II history in Normandy, and even discovered our wedding venue: a chateau in the Loire Valley. (If you assumed our wedding would be in Scotland, we did too! But the switch to France is a story for another day.)
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In many stories, this is where the “happily ever after” part would be. But for us, this is just the midpoint; there is much more to our story.
Stay tuned; it’s to be continued.
