Whisky Business

PHOTO BY MARK C. ANDERSON

Mitchel Sawhney experienced a personal awakening pre-COVID. After decades studying, sampling and collecting whisky, he realized he had the means and the motivation to take his long-held passion—and its accompanying collection and connections—and transform it into a business. (Yes, whisky, no “e,” as it’s spelled in Scotland, where Sawhney finds his favorite brands.)

“I want to provide access and education unique to this area,” he says.

So he retired from a career in tech and barreled into a new endeavor. So one of his favorite quarantine endeavors became tinkering with cocktails. Ultimately he discovered that he could enjoy whisky and Scotch in myriad ways beyond his preferred approach (neat)— and those same taste buds that make him a high-end whisky connoisseur help him craft some tasty cocktails.

“I know most of the possible ingredients and I stick to the ones I know well,” he says. “I have a fairly good palate. LisAnne and I experiment a lot.”

That led Edible Monterey Bay to a tasting at 425 Alvarado St. in Monterey. That’s where, over the course of months and months, Mitchel and his wife LisAnne have overseen a gradual transformation of the former Guitar Center, with Mitchel doing much of the work himself.

“It’s been a labor of love,” he says, “and patience.”

The shiny and soaring shelves he stained await an opening date this spring before they’ll be filled. When the debut does come they’ll be populated with hundreds of expressions of whisky, whiskey and bourbon from the likes of Garrison Brothers, Macallan, High West and Woodford Reserve.

Laphroaig Islay Single Malt Scotch Whisky will be a star, which makes sense because Sawhney can claim one of the world’s largest collections of 40-year-old Laphroaig. He also enjoys relationships with the owners and/or distillers of many of his favorite brands.

The bottle shop that sits in the adjoining chamber will offer hundreds more bottles, and is already home to rare specialty liqueurs and a lending library stocked with spirits literature.

Out front The Whisky Club will feature a range of batch cocktails on tap to help streamline service. That will be complemented by limited snacks, draft beer, local wine and a brisk slate of seminars, tasting flights and field trips. For our tasting, Sawhney prepped two of his go-to drinks, both built around one of his favorite bourbons, Russell’s Reserve 10 Year.

One cocktail hails from TWC’s selection of whisky sours, a house specialty. An additional revelation arrives with the namesake Whisky Club Manhattan—one of three Manhattans on the menu. The Russell’s gives it a sublime foundational smoothness, the interplay of two bitters lends complexity and classic Carpano vermouth rounds out commendable balance.

It’s a team victory, sealed by a fancy Luxardo maraschino cherry wrapped in the same lemon peel with which he rubs the rim, but the blood orange bitters is what stands out.

“It’s an easy call for me,” Sawhney says. “I really like the taste, and the blood orange bitters is a nod to all the Italian heritage in the area.”