Friends, family and former colleagues will gather at Bulli's Anglican Church on Thursday to farewell one of the Illawarra's best known wine and whisky identities.
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Norman Case moved to the Illawarra in 1972 and died last Wednesday aged 79.
The former engineer was a true gentleman, a dapper dresser and what he didn't know about single malt whisky wasn't worth knowing.
He opened his first bottle shop at Woonona, sold that in 1986 and took on the Porters franchise in Coledale, which he turned into a mecca for fine wine lovers and ran until 2002.
It was an inquiry from a customer that sparked his love for single malt whisky or what he referred to as the liquid of life.
Mr Case couldn't help the customer and so he established his own import/export business and at one stage was importing up to 60 different single malt varieties.
He became one of Australia's foremost experts and in 1981 he wrote Scotch Whisky - the Single Malts in collaboration with his friends John Buchanan and Emery Gellert.
Mr Case was the NSW Scotch Whisky Association's representative in Wollongong and was renowned for his dinners at the Normandy and later the Novotel, where whisky lovers had the opportunity to taste some of the rarest drops on the planet.