Avre Friday Briefing #73
VAT 01 — 5cl miniatures are now live
We've just bottled a 5cl version of VAT No. 1, our blended malt whisky.
The full, 70cl version is £199, and once you've got one you've got a decision to make: does it sit on the shelf, or do you open it? We kept running into that same question ourselves, so we've taken it off the table for you. The 5cl lets you taste the whisky first, then decide whether a full bottle earns a place on your shelf — while there are still a few left.
We made 265 bottles of VAT No. 1, one for each of the Commandos who took part in Operation Chariot, the raid on St Nazaire in March 1942. To make the miniatures, we opened seven of those bottles ourselves to give us 98 x 5cl bottles.
It's the same whisky either way — a one-off marriage of single malt casks that won't be recreated. When these are gone, that's it.
The 5cl is £19.99.
Al's verdict, for what it's worth: "The smoothest whisky I've ever tasted. So good it's dangerous." He knows his stuff!
What we're watching: Al and James aboard HMS Belfast
The latest from WW2 HQ has Al and James filming on HMS Belfast for their IWM series, Watching the War.
They spend a good while on the Supermarine Walrus — the catapult-launched spotter aircraft, folding wings and all, known to the crews as the "Shagbat." The highlight is a clip of a crewman perched on the top wing while the thing bounces along in the open sea, with neither Al nor James able to work out how he got up there. From there it's on to radar and the cavity magnetron, and then the Mulberry harbours — including a WW2 HQ drone sent out to one of the Phoenix caissons at Arromanches that very nearly didn't make it home.
On this day: 7 August 1942
US Marines debark from Landing Craft Personnel (Large)s on 7th August 1942
Eighty-four years ago today, US Marines waded ashore on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Operation Watchtower was the first major American ground offensive against Japan in the Pacific, and the start of a campaign that would grind on for six months in some of the hardest fighting of the war. The amphibious landings themselves were a surprise and largely unopposed. Holding the island afterwards was anything but.