Each year, we look forward to the Tutored Whisky Tasting that Emmett Hossack organizes on behalf of the Scottish Society of Ottawa (SSO). It’s held on the Sunday closest to the feast day of St. Andrew, patron saint of Scotland, and it serves as the launch of SSO’s two-month long Scottish Festival. This year, the weekend also corresponds with the opening of the City of Ottawa refrigerated outdoor rinks. Since the Lansdowne Skating Court. is just a few hundred yards from the tutored whisky tasting at Milestones Grill, it was also a perfect opportunity to begin this winter’s kilt skating.

The tasting began with the skirl of the pipes.

Some 76 people — Scots, Scots-by-heritage, Scots-at-heart, and Scotch drinkers all — gathered to savour the range of whiskies Emmett had obtained, often directly from the distilleries. This year, they included:

• A 14-year-old Glenfiddich finished in bourbon barrels — it retails at LCBO for $69.95;

• A 9-year-old Deanston, finished in brandy casks — $109.95;

• A mystery whisky which set the audience to guessing whether it was a single malt or a blend, what was used as the grain, and what country did it come from? It turned out to be a blend from Forty Creek distillery in Grimsby, Ontario, that in addition to malted barley, included rye and corn elements. Retail $79.95.

• An exceptionally smooth anCnoc 24-year-old, retailing at $299.95;

• A crowd favourite Highland Park Trillium, $249.95

• And for the “peat heads” as Emmett called them, a Kilchoman PX retailing at $199.95.

For the price of a $65 ticket, the participants enjoyed whiskies that, if you were to buy the bottles yourself, would have retailed for over $1000. Now there’s a bargain to warm the heart of any Scot! Not only that, but we got the benefit of the skills of Milestones’ kitchen in pairing each whisky with food tastings, ranging from gazpachos to sliders, lemon tarts to chocolate cakes.

Emmett is passionate about whiskies and travels Scotland in search of new tastes, new knowledge and new stories to tell — and visiting old friends among the distilleries he’s gotten to know well over the years. His talks delve effortlessly into history, geography, chemistry, anatomy. (I did not know that one nostril has more olfactory strength than the other. We’re right-handed or left-handed. Apparently we’re also right-nostriled or left-nostriled.)

He guided us through each of the six whiskies, giving us lots of time to discuss our impressions with our table partners, and to enjoy the food pairings. At the end of a most enjoyable two hours, we were quizzed on what we had learned — the winners taking home some very interesting and unusual scotches. For those with a thirst for more, a fundraising auction at the end of the event offered a private tutored whisky tasting with Emmett for four people who could choose from the hundreds of bottles in Emmett’s own reserve. The lads in the table behind me were the bidders.

After the presentation, Emmett went to work on the very Scottish discipline of rendering the accounts of how much money had been raised to help fund SSO’s ambitious agenda for its two-month-long Scottish Festival.

The next major event in SSO’s Scottish Festival will be the eighth annual Hogman-eh! celebration on New Year’s Eve— the largest Hogmanay event outside of Scotland. Once again, we’ll bring in the new year twice: first at midnight in Scotland, which makes for a wonderful 7 p.m party at the Aberdeen Pavilion. This is a family-friendly event that enables parents to get the little ones home to bed.

New this year, a cover charge of $10 will be applied as the party carries on from 9 pm to midnight. Entertainment includes The Next Generation Leahy, The Mudmen, Clan Daestyn and East Coast Experience.

Next on the Scottish Festival line-up will be the sixth annual Great Canadian Kilt Skate on January 18. The kilt skates began in 2015 when the SSO sought a way to commemorate the bicentennial of the birth of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister. That year SSO coordinated kilt skates in four cities across Canada. By last year, the phenomenon had spread to 10 cities, including one in the United States. The 2020 Ottawa skate will once again be held at Lansdowne.

Finally, the finale. Thanks to the organizational abilities and hard work of SSO’s Sherry Sharpe, the annual Gala Burns Supper & Ceilidh has grown to become the best Burns supper in a city that has many to choose from. Sherry attended the tutored whisky tasting along with her husband Ian Richardson, and talked about plans for the January 25 event to be held at the Shaw Centre.

Fellowship, food, learning, and whisky. It was an altogether fine afternoon. By the time we left Milestones, dusk had fallen on the city, but the Lansdowne Christmas market was still very open and very active.

You get a lot of curious glances when you walk through an outdoor shopping area in a kilt when the temperature is approaching minus double digits. It’s an even better conversation starter when you’re on the ice in your skates. I explain that, yes, it’s a bit chilly. “But this is winter. Your cheeks get cold, and your other cheeks get cold, and you just have to ignore it and get on with skating.” And that’s what we’ll do the coming weeks and months as we celebrate Scotland’s heritage in Canada with bare knees and ice.