Flaviar- Premium Spirits Delivered Right to Your Door

By Jennifer Shanteau

Once upon a time, a girl came home to happily discover there was a package waiting for her. She was very excited and quickly went about opening it. Inside the box was an even smaller, prettier box. The girl became even more excited, and opened that second box even faster. Inside were viles of delicious nectar from the gods which made the girl very, very happy. And this is how my story began….much like a fairy tale, I received five samples of whisky from around the world, delivered right to my door. What is the name of my fairy godmother you ask? Flaviar. For a small fee ($25 a month) Flaviar will make your alcohol fairy tale dreams come true.

Not only do they send you a sampling of various intoxicating concoctions, but they also send an entire booklet with instructions on how to best enjoy this tasting, so if you have never in your life experienced such wonders, you will have all of the information you need to perform a professional and fun filled tasting all on your own in the privacy of home sweet home. All you really need are some glasses, water, crackers and an optional friend.

Of course, if you really just want to skip all of this interesting information that’s so wonderfully prepared to increase your enjoyment, and just blindly start sipping away, you could, but why would you? They make it so easy to understand the four components of tasting: appearance/color, smell/nose, taste/palate and finish. If you still feel overwhelmed, they’ve filled in the information on each spirit for you, so if you’re like me, you can write down your thoughts, and then compare them to that of the experts. I found this to be extremely educational and intriguing. After reading the description, I almost always smelled or tasted something I hadn’t noticed until after I read their cheat sheet.

For example, let’s discuss my favorite whisky of the night, Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban. I wrote, “amber in color, thick legs, smelled like chocolate first, then spices, tasted like chocolate, smooth, gentle finish”. Here’s what the pros wrote:

See? There was a lot I missed, and after reading their assessment, I was able to distinguish so much more than I did on my own.

You can approach this tasting in so many ways. Invite some friends over and make a game of it. Its a great conversation starter! You could even use it to lure that special someone to your lair. It’s certainly more creative than saying, “hey, let’s watch a movie at my place”, especially on those cold winter evenings when you’ll do anything to avoid being out in public. Or…use it to educate your palate, like I did. Try to guess just by the bottles which is going to be your favorite, and then line them up in order of preference, and see if you were right. Here’s my personal pick going from left to right, starting with the one I liked the most to the least. I had a hard time putting that first one down!

Whether you use this box of goodies to educate yourself, or to entertain, it’s definitely a great way to try some new spirits without breaking the bank, and investing in an entire bottle. They even have an app you can download, so you can order what you loved, or just make a note of it for later. Its definitely worth the mere $25 a month. I mean, that’s basically just five coffees. You can’t even go to the movies for $25 anymore! With the holidays coming up, it would make an amazing gift, too! Why not just buy someone three months worth? Don’t bother buying a membership for me, though, I already did. If it weren’t for the no commitment membership, this flying free Sagittarius might have shied away, but you can cancel anytime, not that you’ll want to. Needless to say, I am a big fan of Flaviar. Now I am guaranteed a present every month! Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. Someone had to buy it for me.