Today’s hospitality professional must have a wide knowledge base.

An ability to advise guests and customers on everything from food and drink to local attractions and sites of interest marks out the true professional within the field.

For this reason, IMI offers a broad education in all areas of hospitality and regularly welcomes experts from different fields to offer students a more in-depth knowledge of certain subjects.

We were delighted to welcome Dr. Dolf Stockhausen (Owner) and Mr. Michael Soormann (CEO) of innovative whisky brand Seven Seals on campus for a special masterclass and tasting session.

The brainchild of Dr. Stockhausen and the result of his desire to speed up the whisky production process, Seven Seals uses revolutionary technology to dramatically cut-down the time needed for the maturation of the whisky while not compromising on taste or quality.

Instead of following the traditional barrel maturation process, the company has patented its own ‘Fast Forward Finishing’ method which uses infused wood chips in carefully optimised conditions to rapidly speed up the time from concept to bottle.

As Dr. Stockhausen joked: “At the age of 72, I can’t guarantee I have 12 years to wait for my whisky to mature.”

In addition to fast-forwarding the process, the Seven Seal’s approach is also more cost productive and environmentally sustainable, while still producing gold medal-standard whiskeys that have triumphed at many international competitions.

After explaining the story of their brand to our students, Dr. Stockhausen and Mr. Soormann then unveiled a selection of their whiskeys for us to taste, sharing valuable pointers and tasting notes for us better to appreciate the beverages.

The students enjoyed experiencing the subtle flavours of the whiskeys using their full range of sentences and were also able to ask the two experts any questions that they had.

A fantastic masterclass offering great insights into one of the world’s most popular beverages – a big thank you to Dr. Stockhausen and Mr. Soormann for their time and expertise!