There is a fair amount of food on his Instagram, and he does have a second just for the coffee he’s drunk, but what Billy Abbott really knows about is whisky. He started blogging in 2009 and 2 years later he left his computer programming job behind to start work full-time at The Whisky Exchange where he shares his love of whisky in words, reviews and presentations. Outside of that, he’s an author, event host, awards judge, and his alcohol interests extend around the world and beyond whisky.

He has presented tastings for us before and always brings a fantastic selection of whiskies, rivalled only by the anecdotes and insider tales he can share. This time the brief we have given him is ‘International’, and he’s sure to bring along a line-up of excellent whiskies – including some bottles that are exclusive to The Whisky Exchange.

Date: Friday 8th November 2024
Time: 8pm – 11pm
Venue: Main Hall, St Andrews Hall, St Andrews Road, CB4 1DH.
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Important Information
Refund requests must be made more than 48 hours in advance of the tasting to be guaranteed. Any requests made with less notice will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Buying your ticket early helps us plan for the right numbers and reduces the chance of us having to cancel. If we have to cancel or reduce the scale of an event, due to ticket-sale forecasting, we may have to refund some or all tickets.

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Sold out - Contact us about the waiting list

In what is fast becoming a CUWAS tradition, we begin Michaelmas Term with two tours of Scotland, tasting two bottles from each of the country’s (main) whisky regions to showcase just how much variety exists in the modern whisky market. To get the full experience, we highly recommend you attend both tastings so you can try the full spectrum of Scotch whisky! 

For this second tasting, we will be sampling a lineup of six excellent whiskies from the Speyside, Campbeltown, and Island regions.

Date: Friday 25th October 2024
Time: 8pm – 11pm
Venue: Main Hall, St Andrews Hall, St Andrews Road, CB4 1DH.
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Important Information
Refund requests must be made more than 48 hours in advance of the tasting to be guaranteed. Any requests made with less notice will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Buying your ticket early helps us plan for the right numbers and reduces the chance of us having to cancel. If we have to cancel or reduce the scale of an event, due to ticket-sale forecasting, we may have to refund some or all tickets.

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Sold out - Contact us about the waiting list

In what is fast becoming a CUWAS tradition, we begin Michaelmas Term with two tours of Scotland, tasting two bottles from each of the country’s (main) whisky regions to showcase just how much variety exists in the modern whisky market. To get the full experience, we highly recommend you attend both tastings so you can try the full spectrum of Scotch whisky!

In this first tasting, we aim to get the year off to a flying start by ‘visiting’ the Highlands, Lowlands, and Islay.

Date: Friday 11th October 2024
Time: 8pm – 11pm
Venue: Main Hall, St Andrews Hall, St Andrews Road, CB4 1DH.
(open Google maps in new tab)

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Important Information
Refund requests must be made more than 48 hours in advance of the tasting to be guaranteed. Any requests made with less notice will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Buying your ticket early helps us plan for the right numbers and reduces the chance of us having to cancel. If we have to cancel or reduce the scale of an event, due to ticket-sale forecasting, we may have to refund some or all tickets.

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Sold out - Contact us about the waiting list

September means the start of autumn, the end of one academic year and the beginning of a new one… and this year, a CUWAS presidential debate (of sorts)!

In a first for the society, the final summer tasting at the end of our 10th year will feature a (whisky) battle of the outgoing president and incoming president. Will you prefer the whisky picks of Zoë, who favours fruity, sweeter variations? Or those of Dan, who tends towards the hefty, more unusual incarnations of the spirit?

Join us to witness the debate, in whisky form, as the two presidents go head-to-head across three categories to round out one year and welcome the next!

Date: Friday 13th September 2024
Time: 8pm – 11pm
Venue: Main Hall, St Andrews Hall, St Andrews Road, CB4 1DH

Important Information
Refund requests must be made more than 48 hours in advance of the tasting to be guaranteed. Any requests made with less notice will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Buying your ticket early helps us plan for the right numbers and reduces the chance of us having to cancel. If we have to cancel or reduce the scale of an event, due to ticket-sale forecasting, we may have to refund some or all tickets.

Sold Out.

Every year the UN publishes its ‘World Happiness Report’, and Scandinavian countries (or the Nordic countries to be more exact) consistently come in the top 10. Why might this be? Easy access to smoked fish? High levels of social welfare? Hygge? Or maybe it’s the plethora of excellent and exciting whisky distilleries that have popped up over the past few decades?

We at CUWAS are pretty sure it’s the fourth option! Expect a wide range of delicious whiskies from Nordic climes at this special summer tasting as we aim to bring a little bit of this Scandinavian happiness to Cambridge.

Date: Friday 30th August 2024
Time: 8pm – 11pm
Venue: Main Hall, St Andrews Hall, St Andrews Road, CB4 1DH

Important Information
Refund requests must be made more than 48 hours in advance of the tasting to be guaranteed. Any requests made with less notice will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Buying your ticket early helps us plan for the right numbers and reduces the chance of us having to cancel. If we have to cancel or reduce the scale of an event, due to ticket-sale forecasting, we may have to refund some or all tickets.

Sold Out.

Date: 7th June 2024, 8pm – 11pm, St Andrews Hall

Blends get a bad rap for being less special and more simplistic than single malts – we’re here to show you some of the delicious and unique blended whiskies that are actually out there! Besides the fact that blends make up an overwhelming majority of Scottish whisky exports, a number of distilleries have done really exciting experiments with blends, getting flavours and combinations you simply can’t find in single malt whiskies. Blending is an art in itself, and we’ll feature six of the most interesting blends we can find for you to try. 

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Refund requests must be made more than 48 hours in advance of the tasting to be guaranteed. Any requests made with less notice will be considered on a case by case basis. 

Buying your ticket early helps us plan for the right numbers and reduces the chance of us having to cancel. If we have to cancel, or reduce the scale of an event, due to ticket-sale forecasting, we may have to refund some or all tickets.

Sold Out.

Date: 24th May 2024, 8pm – 11pm, St Andrews Hall

If you know anything about whisky, you’ve likely had (or at least familiar with the concept of) whisky from Scotland, Ireland, and North America. But the world of whisky is vast, and we’re excited to feature whiskies in this tasting from countries that aren’t traditionally associated with the production of this spirit. Whisky is made on (almost) every continent, and we hope you’ll get an appreciation for the distinctiveness of whiskies made in different countries, and how their climates, methods, and other factors shape the whisky they make. 

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Refund requests must be made more than 48 hours in advance of the tasting to be guaranteed. Any requests made with less notice will be considered on a case by case basis. 

Buying your ticket early helps us plan for the right numbers and reduces the chance of us having to cancel. If we have to cancel, or reduce the scale of an event, due to ticket-sale forecasting, we may have to refund some or all tickets.

Sold Out.

Date: 10th May 2024, 8pm – 11pm, St Andrews Hall

Every year the CUWAS committee has to source over 70 bottles with which to populate our tastings. With so much whisky to buy, our committee members therefore spend an awful lot of time scouring the catalogues of the many excellent online retailers and browsing the shelves of some of Cambridge’s specialist shops. However, such purveyors are not the only options for a thirsty drinker in search of their next dram, as many supermarkets now offer a surprisingly broad and varied range of spirits. The goal of this tasting is to showcase some of the whiskies that are now available on the high street and to pose an important question to our members – which store will come out on top in our ‘battle of the supermarkets?’.

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Refund requests must be made more than 48 hours in advance of the tasting to be guaranteed. Any requests made with less notice will be considered on a case by case basis. 

Buying your ticket early helps us plan for the right numbers and reduces the chance of us having to cancel. If we have to cancel, or reduce the scale of an event, due to ticket-sale forecasting, we may have to refund some or all tickets.

Sold Out.

Date: 26th April 2024, 8pm – 11pm, St Andrews Hall

What can you taste when you don’t know the distiller, the region, the cask, or any of the other details of the whisky you’re drinking? This tasting will give you the opportunity to really put your tasting and nosing skills to the test. We’ll provide you with six whiskies, and it will be your task to try to identify and describe the details of what you’re tasting. We hope you’ll come away with a renewed appreciation for the different factors that go into how whisky smells and taste. But don’t worry – you won’t be graded!

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Refund requests must be made more than 48 hours in advance of the tasting to be guaranteed. Any requests made with less notice will be considered on a case by case basis. 

Buying your ticket early helps us plan for the right numbers and reduces the chance of us having to cancel. If we have to cancel, or reduce the scale of an event, due to ticket-sale forecasting, we may have to refund some or all tickets.

Sold Out.