It was a hot August night and both sides were prepared to battle over an ancient rivalry: America vs. Scotland. Each side picked three of its best collectors to select a set of three whiskeys from their personal collections — the catch was that all had to be whiskies never before tasted at LAWS. The whiskeys would be tasted blind and judged by the group as a whole (minus the combatants). 

All whiskeys were pre-decanted into identical opaque bottles, with the blind “codes” for each whiskey being cinematic heroes from each nation. For Scotland: Connor MacLeod, James Bond, and of course, William Wallace. For America: Indiana Jones, John McClane, and the one and only Rocky Balboa.

It was a fierce battle with each side deploying its most sophisticated weapons. The Scots fired the first shots with a 46 year old Lochside from 1965, a 1968 Tamnavulin, and a 9 year old Port Charlotte from Malts of Scotland. The Americans struck back with a 1934 Mount Vernon Rye, an early '70s Old Weller 107 from Stitzel-Weller, and a high proof rye recipe bourbon bottled by Willett for the exclusive 1789b bourbon group.

When the smoke cleared and the scores were tabulated... it was a statistical dead heat! The two sides had drunk to a draw. Picky as they are, the Scotch lovers pointed out that when carried to the third decimal, Scotch had a wee margin, and the winning bottle of the night was the Lochside. But to the Americans, those were silly technicalities, probably due to using the metric system. 

It seemed appropriate to some that there should be no winners or, as they may have learned in Kindergarten, that "we are all winners." But others still felt the thirst for battle and nursed their wounds with good whiskey and the thought of future victories.