Welcome to Bend Spirit Club! Established in October 2008 by Brad Irwin.
The vision was to gather together some friends and do regular spirit tastings in an effort to become educated on the many varieties and nuances of the liquor world.
Bend Spirit Club began meeting monthly after that and our palates and minds have definitely been opened since our humble beginnings. We now have 11 members in good standing.
Bend Spirit Club Bi-laws
Tastings occur on the first Thursday evening of every month. Attendees pay a $15 door fee per tasting. This donation to the host helps to offset the costs of the tasting.
All tastings are of distilled spirits but do not necessarily have to be tasted straight. A host could theme a tasting of various mixed drinks, but could not taste wines or beers.
Our membership will be a maximum of 24 people. A member should expect to host up to twice per year, depending on membership size. To maintain membership in good standing a member cannot miss more than 4 tastings per calendar year.
Hosting duties include providing a location, spirit theme, the liquor, appetizers, emails prior to the meeting to communicate date, time and place and a posting within one week after the meeting on the website with the groups tasting notes.
In an effort to grow our group to 24 people we have adopted guest regulations.
Inviting guest(s) is the sole privilege of the host. If the host member chooses to invite a guest(s) that person becomes a sponsored guest of the host.
The following protocol should be followed for that guest to become a member:
- Host sends an email after they host indicating whether or not they want to extend an invitation to their sponsored guest to come again.
- All members need to respond back indicating whether or not they have any opposition to this person returning to the group as a sponsored guest.
- If there is no opposition then the member of the sponsored guest is free to invite them to the next 2 tastings as a guest.
- Once a sponsored guest has attended 2 Tastings in succession then they are eligible for membership.
- The host member will nominate their sponsored guest for membership and should receive a reply back from every member indicating their vote of yes or no. If the vote is a unanimous yes then the member is invited to their 4th tasting where they are welcomed into the group as a member in good standing.
- The new member must be available to host within the first 6 months of their membership. As well as post their personal bio on the website within one month of membership.
