Heart Cut launches distillery-led subscription service

Independent bottler The Heart Cut has launched a new monthly whisky subscription designed to explore one distillery at a time.

The Slow Whisky Club is a monthly subscription service that focuses on a different distillery for each drop, ranging from established producers to emerging names from around the world, with an emphasis on people, provenance, and why the whisky tastes the way it does. The ethos of the service reflects the same philosophy that underpins every single cask from which The Heart Cut releases, seeking out distinctive drams and telling the story behind each one. “The Slow Whisky Club is about opening up the wider whisky world – from household names to rising stars – and giving people a way to explore distilleries like never before,” said Georgie Bell, co-founder of The Heart Cut. “It’s about opening up our little black book even further, and helping people understand what makes each distillery special, worthy of a pour, and, most importantly, a pause on life’s everyday hustle and bustle.” Members will be able to explore each distillery through the bottler's 30ml Pocket Pours, tasting videos, and meet-the-maker-style content, all of which have been designed to bring the whisky and its story closer to the drinker. New members will receive a welcome Pocket Pour of the brand’s first core release, Barley, upon joining, before entering the monthly delivery cycle. Members will then receive one or two 30ml Pocket Pours from that month’s distillery, alongside a tasting card and digital content designed to explore the whisky’s flavour, production and provenance in more detail. Each selection is guided by The Heart Cut’s founders, Bell and Fabrizio Leoni, whose experience tasting casks around the world over the last 15 years underpins every choice – removing the need to ‘research, compare or second-guess’. The subscription is priced at £9.90 (US$13.20) per month for one pouch or £17.80 (US$23.70) for two, with shipping included, and member benefits such as 10% off the house pour Barley. 'Passing the Dram' In addition to the consumer launch, The Heart Cut has introduced a trade-led initiative designed to support ongoing whisky discovery within the bartending community. The 'Passing the Dram' programme will see a complimentary Slow Whisky Club membership (two pouches per month) allocated to one member of the on-trade in each of 10 UK cities for a period of three months. The 10 cities are: London, Manchester, Bath, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Liverpool, Brighton, Leeds, and Birmingham. The Heart Cut, alongside its UK distributor NXUS, will choose the first participant, and at the end of the three-month period, that participant will nominate another member of the trade in their city to receive the membership, creating an ongoing chain of knowledge-sharing and peer-to-peer recommendation. In addition, The Heart Cut is offering 20% off Slow Whisky Club memberships to UK hospitality professionals and spirits shop teams, with access available by contacting the company directly at hello@theheartcut.com. Bell added: “Fab and I both started our careers in hospitality, so we understand the importance of category education from a development perspective. We wanted to create something that encourages sharing knowledge and passing it on.”