Flaviar is a subscription box for spirits lovers and enthusiasts who want to discover new drinks. To help in this quest, they send members a tasting pack of new and exciting flavours every month.
Cost: €34.99/month ($40 USD)
Shipping: Ships to all European Union (EU) countries and the United States, with the exception of the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Montana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, and Utah.
Coupon Codes:
- HALLOBOTTLE10 - Save 10% on a bottle.
- HALLOPACK15 - Save 15% on a Tasting Packs.
For about €35/month (your first month is reduced to €20) you get a tasting pack of 5 spirits. There is an option to select what type of liquor you most enjoy. You also have the option of purchasing a full size bottle. If you don’t want a shipment on a particular month, you can skip.
I am a big fan of Scotch but like most people, I find that the price of a bottle of good scotch makes it prohibitive to try many different types. Even going out to a local pub that carries 250 or so varieties, it’s still expensive to sample. I have attended tasting parties and I have found this a great way to sample. So when I got this box to review, I was skeptical but very excited. The subscription box is designed to provide 5 different spirits for you to sample. There is 45 ml in each bottle so there is enough for 3 x 0.5 oz shots. I break it down this way because one of the sales pitches is to invite your friends and have a small tasting party. Personally, I left my friends at home and enjoyed the 1.5 oz sample all to myself.
I was impressed with the Tasting Pack. If you were to give this as a gift to someone, it’s very nicely put together. I would be thrilled to unwrap this little surprise. The bottles are very stylish vials with simple labels. It would be easy to adapt this to a blind tasting. The tasting pack comes with a few notes as well. One set of notes has instructions written to set yourself up for the ultimate tasting experience. It goes as far to list types of glasses and what you would need to cleanse your palate. Then they tell you how to approach the tasting. Suggestions for how to rate the appearance, the smell, the taste, and the finish. What I really liked is that they also include extensive notes on the spirits you are sampling. This way you can make your own notes and then see how well you did when compared to the experts. Alternately you could just work from the notes and see if you can recognize all the smells and tastes they suggest.
So what did I think of the scotch? Well I have tried my share of different varieties. There were two that I had never tried in the samples and one of them I cannot get in my country (Canada) so that was cool. The box contained a sample of The Glenlivet 18 yr old, Laphroaig Quarter Cask, Lagavulin 16 yr old, Singleton of Dufftown 15 yr old, and Auchentoshan 12 yr old. Some of these are over $100 (CDN) where I live so in my opinion good value in the selection. I’m not going to get into the tasting notes for the different samples. That kinda stuff is personal and it’s going to vary from person to person. So if you think you would enjoy about 7.5 oz of scotch every month or you know someone who would, consider signing up.
What do you think of Flaviar?
