What happens when you combine world class whisky with gloomy sounds? You get a whole lotta fun! Meet Peter and Lars, the world’s first whisky’n’doom-entrepeneurs.

Peter and Lars, you are the minds behind Taste The Doom. How do you plan your events, one of you living in Denmark and one in Berlin?

Taste The Doom: Usually, we just pick a date when we’re both available and then go for it. Depending on what else is going on in our lives, this can be more or less complicated. Just this spring we had quite some TTD-activities, much exceeding our average frequency of tastings. But there were a lot of good bookings on offer. So we felt it would be unwise not to roll with it.

What is the concept of Taste The Doom resp. Slowlands Berlin? Do you think it would work with other music genres as well?

Lars: Taste The Doom is a guided tasting where we’ll present both music and whisky in a winning combination.

Peter: Slowlands is a bit more laidback whisky lounge aiming to present a broad as possible selection of great whisky. The music serves as an intriguing backdrop and the selection is based on characteristics that match with those I find in whisky – slowness, deepness, multi-layered complexity. It’s bar music you don’t hear in any other bar.

Taste The Doom: It’s for sure possible and we’ve discussed other music genres. But we will stick with what proved to work best for us.

Who came up with the idea and why? When did you start? How did people react to the idea?

Lars: I had secretly been contemplating doing some tastings in Berlin, but wasn’t sure how to go about this. Until one day Peter remarked that we should somehow do something revolving around whisky. However the ball didn’t start rolling until one summers evening in 2011 on Peters terrace, where we enjoyed an Ardbeg Alligator Committee Release, while listening to Buried At Sea’s Migration. We knew that this is the format that will work. After searching for a while, we found an accommodating bar in Neukölln and started selling tickets.

People embraced it quite fast, the first few editions sold out within 3 weeks or so but I think from TTD4 we gained momentum and from then on you had to be fast to get tickets. So we started giving a weeks notice before actually selling in order to give all a fair warning and somewhat equal start-off.

Peter: What we experienced pretty much every time we told our concept to someone was that people „got“ it immediately. It seems whisky and doom metal share some intrinsic values that make them the perfect fit.

How do you put together an evening of Taste The Doom? How do you choose a song to a whisky?

Taste The Doom: Well, most is done via internet, as much else these days. But we conduct some extensive research when we do meet, so we have a good base to draw from and then individual explorations leads to bottle selections, we then discuss back and forth. The song should reflect the whisky, set the mood and display our overall intention with the whisky lineup and the current whiskies position in it.

What are your next steps with Taste The Doom?

Taste The Doom: Making more tastings as well as expanding to new areas that cannot be disclosed yet.

Have you experienced differences between the scenes in the cities you’ve done the doom tasting, e.g. Vienna, Copenhagen or Berlin?

Lars: No, not as such. Except, I was surprised how much they smoke in Vienna. And Copenhageners are usually late. Perhaps the most well-behaved are actually the Berlin-crowd…

Peter: Since we are the first ones doing whisky’n’doom metal tastings, we don’t have any scene as such. But we have an illustrious mix of metalheads, whisky nerds, hipsters, and random people where we are not sure why they are here. Of course, after 7 whiskies and over two hours of doom treatment they are all united in their state of mind.

Our most challenging audience has always been the journalists at the annual taz.kongress in Berlin – the only TTDs where we have to answer questions like „And you r.e.a.l.l.y. like such music?“

Can you name your favorite band from Berlin? It can be an all-time favorite or a recent band that you have discovered.

Lars: I don’t think I have one. I’ll have to ponder this a bit more.

Peter: If you are asking for a doom metal band, I am afraid I have to pass as well. The band from Berlin that made the most impact on me is probably Einstürzende Neubauten. Oh, now I know! It’s Black Metal but that counts probably as well – I like Sun Worship a lot!

Your favorite club or bar in Berlin and why?

Taste The Doom: Offside Pub in Wedding, because they have a lot of good whisky.

Can you recommend an artist residing in Berlin that you like a lot?

Lars: Depends on which kind of artist you mean, but I quite enjoy the lofi sound installations made by Vinyl Terror And Horror.

Peter: You mean like contemporary art? I don’t really follow that stuff.

 

Thank you guys for the entertaining Berlin-Copenhagen-connection!

Headerpicture: Niels Fabaek

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Taste The Doom: http://tastethedoom.com/

Slowlands Berlin: https://www.facebook.com/slowlands.berlin