It had gotten to be quite a while between first laying eyes
upon Aldi’s premium Ballycastle Irish Cream and actually getting around
to buying it. The only problem was that I’d been so skint that whenever I’ve
been in Aldi I hadn’t been able to justify even the paltry £5.99 it costs to
indulge my curiosity.
there must be a scientific reason ALL Irish Cream bottles are this shape
Well, I finally seized my chance. We were doing a snack run,
prior to our marathon jaunt to Vietnam, and it was just after pay day – the
only time to make willy-nilly booze purchases these days. I took it home, then
went on holiday and promptly forgot all about it. It was a nice surprise to see
it sitting atop the booze cupboard on my return home, and it certainly made the
discovery that we had no cold water in the kitchen easier to take.
We’d already been awake thirty odd hours, and it was only 8
in the morning, so we figured we’d need to stay up at least another 12 hours if
we were going to get all compus mentus-like in time for going back to work.
Fresh coffee with a drop of Ballycastle was on the cards.
Awesome.
A few days later I went back to it, to try it over ice. I
can’t really fault Irish Cream. You like booze? You like ice cream? There’s a
good chance you’re going to like Irish Cream. I have tried to find a place for
it in my regular drink itinerary, and at the moment, that place is early on a
Sunday afternoon, when you’ve got nowhere to go, you’ve already decided you
aren’t doing any jobs, and the car can damn well stay where it is.
Now, the good thing about Ballycastle is that it is cheap,
but it’s still good. If you go back in time a little, you’ll see that I did a
comparative tasting of your standard Ballycastle with the undisputed (and
original) Irish Cream king, Baileys way back at the beginning of this blog,
and while Baileys was richer, and the Ballycastle somewhat watery by
comparison, you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t drinking them side by side. Even
if you were… you could still enjoy the Ballycastle which back then was
retailing at a tramp friendly £3.99 – not that I’d ever expect to see a tramp
drinking Irish cream. I think it’s gone up about 30p since then, and it’s only
14.5% ABV, compared to Baileys’ 17%, but with Baileys costing £12 or more, you
have to wonder whether it’s worth the additional outlay.
Well, when it comes to the verdict on the Ballycastle
Premium edition, I’ll have you know; you are getting your money’s worth for
that extra £1.70 or so. It’s thicker, richer, more luxurious [than the normal
Ballycastle] – I just want to be able to compare it alongside Baileys now, but
I can’t imagine wanting to spend £12 on a bottle when I can get this for £5.99.
It’s that good.
There must be plenty more brands of Irish Cream on the
market, and frankly, it’s time I tried them all so we can see who really is the
king. Perhaps then I can issue a really prestigious award.
Good evening. Thanks
for joining me again. I hope you enjoyed last week’s Vietnamese adventure. If
you missed that, you can see it here.
This week will be a
very much more shortlived affair, as I return to the subject of Hot Toddies. If
you saw part one, you would know that after a few unsuccessful experiments
there was one more I wanted to try. It was some time before I felt unwell
enough to try it, and a few days more before I could be bothered to make it,
but make it I did, and here’s the resulting post. Enjoy.
Months after beginning my hot toddy investigation, I finally
got ill again. It culminated on Saturday when the missus and I both awoke
gasping for breath at 4 in the morning. Wide awake, we soon gave up any forlorn
hope of sleep and got up to see the dawn in by watching back to back episodes
of Columbo. It was actually quite fun, but we felt like shit.
It wasn’t until Tuesday night however, when I was well on
the way to recovery, that I got around to trying the remaining hot toddy that I
had wanted to try since Part 1. I figured it would be my last chance before I
was completely well again.
The drink was Hot Buttered Rum. I can’t really
remember where I found this recipe, but here it is:
1 tsp unsalted butter
1 tsp maple syrup
½ tsp ground allspice
50ml gold rum (Bacardi Gold, in my case)
Apple juice to top up
Cinnamon stick and freshly grated nutmeg to garnish
I had to substitute the unsalted butter for salted
butter (I’ve often wondered how much difference these things make, but never
noticed), the allspice for ‘mixed’ spice (I suspect these are the same under
different names – I wasn’t stupid enough to use the Chinese 5 Spice…) and the
freshly grated nutmeg for long previously ground nutmeg. I can’t imagine any of
those things made too much difference to the outcome.
Similarly I had to adapt the method slightly. I didn’t have
a heat proof coffee glass, so I wasn’t able to heat the butter, syrup, allspice
and rum in one. Instead I just used a saucepan. Nor could I ‘top up the glass
with warmed apple juice’ because I didn’t see the point in heating the apple
juice separately, and thus causing more washing up! I just poured the apple
juice in with everything else and stirred. I did warm the cinnamon stick
though, on the hob – you’re supposed to add it to the drink as a stirrer.
dangerously close to cooking, this is
The instructions said to stir until the butter had
emulsified, but I didn’t really know what that meant, so I just stirred until
the mixture appeared smooth, and was hot enough to drink. A little internet
research I’ve just done defines emulsified as “to turn into an emulsion” and emulsion
as ‘a suspension of small globules of one liquid in a second liquid with
which the first will not mix’ – like oil and vinegar. If that’s the case, the
mixture was surely already emulsified. Eeh, ah dunt know.
The drinking of this mixture pretty much confirmed the way I
already feel about hot toddies. On first test, my reaction was, ‘that’s
quite nice’, but it didn’t last. The flavour is very much a case of sweet
and sour, and for me, that gets old very quickly. When was the last time you had sweet and sour chicken from the Chinese? Yeh (assuming it was ages ago). The further down the mug I
got, the harder work it became, and the less pleasant. In fact, I would go so
far as to say the drink made me feel worse than I did already. But that’s
probably just me.
Of all the drinks of this genre I’ve tried, this was the
most complicated but also most successful. I still don’t buy into this whole
warm alcoholic drinks thing, though. If that’s just that I haven’t found one
for me yet, I don’t know. Nevertheless, I still favour my strong alcohol on its
own.
If you think you can suggest a warm alcoholic remedy that
might just change my mind, go for it. I’m still willing to experiment, though
it could be some time before I’m unwell again.
And that’s it for this week. I know, uncharacteristically brief, but you know, sometimes there
isn’t that much to say, and it’s not like anyone ever reads more than a couple
of paragraphs of a blog anyway. Just a quick word about this coming weekend
then; it’s an exciting time because it’s the start of the football season. Mrs
Cake will feel like she’s The Old Widow
Cake from time to time over the next 9 months as I go to a friend’s house
to watch Liverpool matches and stay up late watching matches I’ve recorded on
TV. Spare a thought for her, won’t you? And... make sure you have a great
weekend.
Bottles and cans, just clap your hands, just clap your
ha-ands…
So now I’ve covered the journey to and fromVietnam with
an emphasis on booze that you can get nearly anywhere in the world, let’s get
down to the subject of actual Vietnamese booze, starting with beer.
They do make nice lager in Vietnam. I tried a number of
varieties, including Saigon (which comes in green (4.3% ABV) and red (4.9% ABV)
varieties), Bia 333 (5.3%), Hanoi (4.2% I think) and Phong Dinh (check). It can
be quite hard to find a cold beer, and what starts as cold doesn’t stay
that way for long, but nevertheless, it’s readily available (in all kinds of
shops, restaurants, bars, hotels and on the street) and when you’re used to
Manchester prices, it’s also cheap. Prices vary between 9000 Vietnamese Dong
(that was for a bottle of Phong Dinh in Can Tho) at one end of the spectrum and
30000 VND for a 330ml can of Tiger or Heineken at the other. Really, there’s no
need to be paying ‘premium’ prices for brands you’ve heard of when you can get
a bottle of Saigon for 12000. Bear in mind, £1 was about 32000 dong.
just enough for a brew
beer is cheaper than juice
beer in Can Tho
All those zeros get confusing after a while, and you’ll find
yourself rejecting the chance to eat in a particular restaurant because Saigon
is 30000 dong, and you’re used to paying only 12000. It’s still less than a
pound.
From here on in I’m going to move to a system that my friend
Paul invented for coping with all those zeroes – replacing ‘thousand’ with
‘kilo’ and ‘million’ with ‘mega’ (Paul works in programming), so for our
purposes a pound is now 32 kilodong. Got it? Let’s move on.
It’s all bottles and cans in Vietnam. Apparently you don’t buy anything on draught because they water it down and the water’s not safe to
drink. It’s not a problem though, because the problem never came up. And
anyway, if I got a problem, a problem got a problem till it’s gone. An added
bonus is that because it’s all cheap, you can even justify drinking stuff out of
the minibar. I don’t think I’ve ever used a minibar before for anything other
than keeping my own drinks cold, but at 60p for a can of Bia 333, well, you
might as well, because when you get back to your hotel after a couple of hours
pounding the concrete in 35 degree heat, you’re ready for the refreshing rasp
of an ice cold beer.
I’ve never really thought about it before, but ice cold beer
hits the spot in hot weather in a way that other ice cold drinks can’t. Sure,
coke is fricking awesome when it’s ice cold, but there’s something about it
that doesn’t match up to a beer. What it is, is that coke (and other soft
drinks) are sweet, so once the initial refreshment has subsided, your mouth
feels all sticky and you want another drink. Beer on the other hand, is sharp
tasting, but not sweet at all. This means the liquid leaves your mouth feeling
refreshed and satisfied – with the added bonus of ‘buzz’. Though you may still
want another one. And that’s my scientific explanation for the day.
A bit of advice here (should you be in Vietnam), for if you
are offered a drink, say on a tour or something. It works like this: if they
put it in your hand, it’s free. If it is offered to you on a tray, you’ll be
asked to pay – but later. That almost rhymes. I’ll see if I can work on that. If
handed to me, then free this drink be. If offered on a tray, I should expect to
pay. There you go.
We drank a lot of beer in Vietnam – every day, except I
think, two days when we were on a cruise around Halong Bay. I’m pretty sure
beers were 60000 dong on that boat, so we weren’t having any of that. We had a
couple of cocktails in happy hour, when it was two for one, but you had to have
two of the same cocktail. Mrs Cake pointed out that this didn’t make sense
since all the cocktails were the same price, but them’s the rules, so don’t go
breaking em.
ah, sweet Glenfarclas
I think we overpriced ourselves a little on that trip,
booking one of the more expensive cruises, because when we got there we were
surrounded by lawyers and people who were clearly more affluent than us, people
who weren’t concerned to be paying a premium on their drinks. We’d be there at
dinner, drinking our free water, saying no whenever the waiter asked if we
wanted to order drinks, while they’d be buying cocktails and bottles of wine.
It made me feel a bit cheap. At least I had my Glenfarclas downstairs in the
cabin.
When it came time to embark on the cruise, I started to
think that maybe I ought to have bought a full size bottle of something in Duty
Free at Manchester, instead of the half bottle. I was having little fantasies
about turning our deck into the party deck – like it was a teen movie from the
80s. Everyone would be hanging out with us, and I’d be the centre of attention,
wearing shades even though it was night time and divvying out generous measures
of scotch. We’d all be wearing Hawaiian shirts and passing doobies
around, while a conga line weaves in and out of the cabins. At least part of
that fantasy is Teen Wolf, I think.
Things didn’t quite work out that way. It was a pretty
sedate cruise, and our neighbours were a polite family from Germany and a
really annoying, noisy family that we assumed was from the US. One of them was
a camp little lad who sang tunelessly to himself (you could hear it through the
walls), and said everything five times:
“Dad, this is wet. This is wet, Dad. Dad, this is wet. This
is wet. Dad, this is wet. Dad; it’s wet”.
The teenage daughter could be heard to be losing the cabin
keys every single time it was time
for them to leave the cabin. The mother was ok, but the dad was a bit of a dick
who wouldn’t set a good example for his kids by wearing a life jacket during
the canoeing excursion.
So no partying on deck two, then. That was ok. I find
socialising with strangers tiring, and all I wanted to do was lounge around
with the missus and a glass of the good stuff.
Yes, I am hardcore
Ok, what else should you be looking for when you go booze
touring in Vietnam? Well, they have a much wider selection of alcohols than I
expected, and it’s cheaper and more readily available than in Malaysia, which
was the last [and only other] place we [have] visited in Southeast Asia. I
remember paying the equivalent of £10 for three 330ml cans of Jaz lager there,
on the island of Tioman. You could get twenty bottles of Saigon for that
price in Vietnam.
They don’t encourage drinking in Malaysia, being that it is
largely a muslim country. That’s actually a good thing since health and safety
is pretty much non-existent – with all the holes in the pavement and rubble
around there’s a good chance you’d break your leg if you went out and got shit-faced.
Not so in Vietnam; there’s plenty of cheap booze and all you need do is make
sure you look out for mopeds. Crossing the road takes a bit of practice, but
the general rule is just keep going.
On our first full day we met our friends Paul and Victoria
in HCMC. They happened to be there at the same time as us, so it was great to
be able to meet up and go drinking.
Vietnamese vodka
They were staying in the backpacker district on Bui Vien, where
it’s all happening. Street bars overflow into the road, people go up and down selling
all kinds of crazy stuff (I was offered weed twice, sex once, my fortune and
a neck massage… this last one from a guy. Who’s this? I asked Paul as I
felt some hands on my neck – because when people do that, you just assume it’s
someone you know. I dunno, he said. Oh! It’s a guy.)
So we went out drinking, and decided to try some of the
local stuff. First up was Vietnamese vodka. It came in a surprisingly generous
measure, but as soon as I tasted it I understood why; it tasted like vodka but appeared
to be watered down. Later (at a different place) I asked if they had anything
stronger, explaining that the Vietnamese vodka appeared to be watered down. The
waiter looked puzzled and suggested Vietnamese whisky. That was satisfactory. I
don’t know which brand it was, but it was fine. At least I remember it that
way, which is to say I don’t really remember it at all. I later discovered that
the vodka would have been Hanoi vodka. It was available all over the place, and
turned out to be only 29% ABV. I wouldn’t be buying that to take home.
Vietnamese whisky
I didn’t really expect that there would be much choice in
the way of Vietnamese vodka, but at Hanoi Airport, I found I was wrong. We were
due, in a couple of days, to head to the largest island in Vietnam, Phu Quoc
and, not knowing how much booze was going to cost, or even how readily
available it would be, Mrs Cake and I figured it might be useful to take some
with us. The Glenfarclas was on its last legs by this point, and we needed
something that Mrs Cake could drink (ie: mix) anyway.
On perusing the various shops in the airport, I passed over
the Hanoi vodka, and soon found a brand by the name of Nep Moi, at 77
kilodong and 39% ABV. That’s about £2.41 for 60cl. I was reluctant really
because I was aware that asian palates can vary quite significantly from our
western ones (see Baiju), and you just never know with vodka, do you?
Especially at under £2.50. I reasoned it out though, and figured if it’s shit,
I can just pour it down the sink for that price.
So I was on the verge of buying it when Mrs Cake found
another variety, Lua Moi at 84 kilodong. At the time, that was £2.61,
and it was an impressive 45% ABV. We immediately had a winner.
I waited until the first day in our beach front bungalow on
Phu Quoc before breaking the seal on that one, and I was immediately impressed.
Yes, it’s strong, which goes in its favour, but in terms of flavour, there is
none of that bitterness that so many cheap vodkas seems to have – and that
surprised me because when I say “cheap” vodkas, I’m referring to your Red
Squares and Smirnoffs, brands that retail from £10 to £18. Lua Moi was really
cheap by comparison.
I’ll tell you something else, I’m going to say this vodka
was so good that I’m going to rank it 2nd behind Stolichnaya in the
all time vodka hierarchy, and to be fair, considering the value factor, it may
be even better than that. I can’t say without a direct comparison, and I do
love Stolichnaya, but value isn’t the most important consideration anyway. I’d
happily place a £100 bottle at number one if I liked it enough.
I relied on the Lua Moi for the entire week that we resided
on Phu Quoc. I did start to wonder, would I drink and enjoy this if I were
at home, and had all my other bottles to choose from? The answer, I
determined, is yes - probably early on Friday evenings, which is when I
normally go for the vodka if I want it neat.
Before Phu Quoc though, I unexpectedly got the chance to
explore some more unusual Vietnamese drinks, when we did a two day tour of the
Mekong Delta. The Mekong Delta is the main agricultural area of Vietnam where
they grow millions of tonnes of rice and fruit. It didn’t sound that
interesting in the guidebook, but yes, it’s good. You basically tootle up and
down the river in various sized boats, occasionally pausing to don one of those
comical conical hats. There’s not a lot of wildlife to see, because if it
moves, I think they eat it, but you know, they make up for it with houses on
stilts, floating markets and the like.
snake wine
The first stop was a factory, where they seem to make
everything – sweets, rice paper, snake… related… things… alcohol, and
snake-related alcohol. Our guide, Xuan, let me try their banana wine (which was
nice) as well as the snake wine. That’s the snake wine you can see there in the
big jar with snakes in it. You’ll find this stuff for sale all over Vietnam,
and when bottled, in most cases the snake will be arranged with a scorpion in
its mouth. Judging by episodes of UK Border Force and… that New Zealand
one (is it Nothing to Declare?), I’m thinking
it would probably be illegal to bring a bottle into the country, not that you’d
want to anyway, despite the fact it is supposed to increase one’s virility (no
problems there, thanks). Imagine if the bottle broke in your bag, and you had
to get the dead snake out of there… ew.
I certainly didn’t want to buy one, but I was glad to be
able to try it. I was only given a little, but I think I’d say it tasted a bit
aniseedy. It reminded me a little of Hierbas Ibicencas, but I couldn’t
give you much more detail than that. It looks like I was the only tourist
prepared to give it a go. You’re not hardcore unless you live hardcore, and yes,
I am hardcore.
They call it snake wine, but it’s more like snake spirit
really, as its alcohol content is around 45%. So it’s pretty hard with or
without the snake. Similarly, the banana wine is also more like spirit in terms
of strength. I don’t know why they call it wine.
The next part of the tour involved going to a house to
sample some different kinds of fruit, one of which was longan, a small
fruit with a large seed that they also use to make liquor. On arrival, our host
gave us each a thimble-full, which we were encouraged to neck. I thought it
tasted like grappa, and therefore enjoyed it very much. Mrs Cake wasn’t so
keen, so I got to finish hers and since I professed a liking for it, I was
offered another sample before we left.
After we’d set out on the boat again, I asked Xuan about the
longan wine, whether it was available to buy in the shops, and he said
it wasn’t; the man at the house distilled his own, but he could probably get
some for me. Another tour from the same company had been just behind us, so he
put in a call to the other guide, asking if he could pick some up, and how much
it was (150 kilodong/ £4.70).
I thought about it for a bit, and figured this was
what I was looking for; a kind of alcohol that is exotic and difficult to find.
I asked Xuan whether it was safe – having been to whisky distilleries on Islay,
and hearing that they have to discard the high and low alcohols during the
distilling process to ensure nothing dangerous gets in, I wondered whether they
took the same care with a home still in Vietnam? This could essentially be like
moonshine and make me go blind. The guy at the house obviously wasn’t blind, I
figured (unless he was like Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli) or
dead (unless he was like er… Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense), so I
rationalised that it was probably all right, and Xuan said it was safe. Even in
Vietnam his company would probably get in trouble for peddling lethal poisons
to visitors. Possibly.
longan wine
I decided to go for it, and after lunch the other guide had
caught up to us and Xuan presented me with a mineral water bottle filled with
longan wine, that didn’t look unlike urine. I opened it and gave it a sniff to
make sure. It was the real deal, so I immediately formed a plan to conduct a
comparative tasting between it and my £48 bottle of Domenis Blanc e Neri grappa
on my return home. You’ll be able to see the results of that in some future
post.
I asked Xuan if it were legal to distil your own spirits in
Vietnam, and he said it wasn’t, but it turned out he was joking.
Our friends Paul and Victoria had moved on to Laos where,
coincidentally they picked up their own bottle of exotic booze in a water
bottle. This was supposedly whisky, though you can see from the picture that it
is colourless, and therefore unaged – I think we all know what the Scotch
Whisky Association would think about that. This bottle actually has a label, and
was apparently properly sealed – unlike mine, which was clearly just a re-used
water bottle with some cling film and an elastic band over the cap to protect
against leakage.
Laotian "whisky"
I did eventually take the longan wine over to Paul’s house
for him to try, and I got to try the Laotian whisky in reciprocation. I quite
liked it, while Paul said he enjoyed the experience of trying the longan wine
rather more than the spirit itself.
So, on to Phu Quoc which was a lovely protracted period of
drinking casually and relaxing: Saigon beer for lunch and Lua Moi vodka in the
early evenings [and at bedtime] for 7 days.
There was a family run convenience store (open 18 hours a
day, 7 days a week) just up the road that sold cold beers at a fraction of the
price of our resort, and had a surprisingly eclectic mix of spirits on offer.
In fact, I was surprised at the number of shops and stalls in Vietnam that sold
beer and spirits. I suspect you don’t need a licence over there. I had been
reluctant to buy spirits from any of the shops in HCMC or Hanoi (except the
fancy liquor stores that frankly looked expensive), figuring that a country
that is so renowned for knock off culture in everything [I bought a
Vietnam football shirt in HCMC that says ‘Adidas’ on the outside, and ‘Mr JR Hung’
on the label, like it’s someone’s PE kit] is probably the same when it comes to
alcohol – is that genuine Johnnie Walker for sale on that stall, or is it
poison? I’m pretty sure some of my online research had mentioned that there are
a number of deaths caused by drinking dodgy Vietnamese booze every year, so a
policy of caution seemed to be the best bet.
Nevertheless, I was willing to give it a go once I saw our
local convenience store. It all looked perfectly above board, and since we were
there nearly every day buying beer (there was no fridge in our bungalow) and on
one occasion a second hand bottle opener, I had plenty of opportunity to scout
out its wares. It was there that I found my purchase. It’s a brand called Wall
Street, and it’s a blend of scotch whisky and Vietnamese Spirit. I’m not
sure what that means as yet, but you can be sure I’ll tell you about it once I
open it.
In terms of strength, Wall Street is only 39%, which means
the Scotch Whisky Association wouldn’t even consider it to be ‘genuine whisky’.
In its defence, nowhere on the box or bottle does it claim to be whisky anyway.
It was 225 kilodong or £7.05, so quite expensive really. In a restaurant on the
beach though, a single shot of it was 100 kilodong, so that makes the bottle at
75cl excellent value.
Since arriving home, I’ve found that there is a ‘Diageo’
label around the top of the bottle, but what that means I have no idea. There
is no mention of it among the brands on their website, and I haven’t found
anything out about it elsewhere online so far. Maybe it’s got some Caol Ila in
it? I suppose I’ll never find out for sure, but I’ll let you know what it’s
like somewhere in the fullness of time.
It was a fantastic holiday then, full of joy, adventure and
alcohol. I love Southeast Asia, and recommend it to anyone, except probably my
parents. They wouldn’t know what to do – with the heat, with the food, with the
mopeds… but I love all that. I love the sweating, the activity, the buzz, the
atmosphere. I wish I could live there. But now it’s over. I don’t mind flying
for 16 hours when you’ve got your holiday to look forward to when you arrive,
but when it’s the other way around and all you’ve got is 50 shades of grey Manchester
weather, jetlag, rain and work to look forward to… it’s hard to feel
optimistic. Still, at least I’ve got a couple of new bottles of booze to look
forward to opening, and I’ll be ordering that Japanese single malt before too
long…
Thanks once again for joining me this week. Hopefully you’ve
found it interesting and will feel like coming back sometime soon. I’m going
out now for dinner and drinks with some very good friends, but I’ll be back
next week with whatever I’ve got planned for then. Have a great weekend, and
I’ll see you later.
It has been quite some time since I had a booze tourism
adventure to tell you about – I suppose the Distilgrimagewould have classed as
one, but I didn’t make that connection until just now… Nevertheless, this time
I’ve got quite an adventure for you – such an adventure in fact, that it
will have to be told in two parts. In April, the missus and I embarked on a
trip to the South East Asian country of Vietnam in what we were calling Honeymoon
Part 2. You can read about Honeymoon Part 1 here.
I always look forward to going away on holiday – for all the
obvious reasons – but also because it means I can try lots of new different
kinds of alcoholic beverage, hit the Duty Free, make some new acquisitions and
all that good stuff. Deciding what to buy and thinking about buying it and then
buying it are all fun things for the alcothusiast – probably exceeded only by
the actual opening of it - and holidays are a time when I try to forget about
cash flow realities, and just think, I am going to buy some interesting
booze, and there is nothing you can do to stop me. Try it. Go on. Told you.
Beyond the Duty Free, I hadn’t really expected Vietnam to
provide all that much in terms of booze excitement – Malaysia didn’t – but I
couldn’t have been more wrong. In fact the Duty Free turned out to be the least
interesting part, so we may as well start there. There’s lots to tell you
about, so let’s get gannin’.
It was hot and noisy and I was definitely sitting in
my pants
I began thinking about possible targets a good couple of
weeks before departure, so that I might be best prepared when the time came to
make the most of the limited purchases a traveller can make. You’re pretty much
allowed a litre of spirits, but in my case it’s two litres because I had Mrs
Cake’s allowance to supplement my own.
Research began with a quick look in the Rough Guide to
Vietnam, where I read about ruou can, which is rice distilled liquor and thought that might be an interesting
option. Then I read about Mekong Whisky on the internet, but some
reviews suggested it might make you ill. On top of that, it seemed that it was
made in Thailand, was more like rum than whisky, and wasn’t even available any
more in any case. I’ll put you out of your misery; none of this proved useful
since I didn’t see either of those products anywhere.
Since my early forays into research proved so unsuccessful, I
started thinking laterally. I figured Vietnam is near Japan, isn’t it? Yes,
kind of, so wouldn’t it make sense that Duty Free in Vietnam would be a good
place to pick up some Japanese single malts? Stands to reason.
With that in mind, I started some over-geeky, exhaustive research.
Japanese whisky is renowned for its quality. According to
Jim Murray’s 2013 Whisky Bible, the atmospheric conditions in Japan are
preferable to those in Scotland, to the degree that 42 summers in Japan are
equivalent to 70 in Scotland in terms of whisky maturation. I’m not really sure how useful that is;
how often do you hear of scotch being aged 70 years? I keep reading that whisky
can be over-aged, so if
anything is going to be over-aged, surely it’s going to be the 70 year old
stuff… why not just say 7 years in Japan is equivalent to 12 in
Scotland? Why, Jim?
I had tried Japanese whisky just once previously myself –
Suntory Hibiki 17 – and I was duly impressed. I figured this was as good a chance
as any to get my hands on a bottle of my own.
I found a few websites that were dedicated to Japanese
whisky (linked on the right of this page…), and left them each comments,
letting them know I was finding their information useful, and one of them
actually replied… to tell me that they had been to Vietnam, and from what they
could remember, there wasn’t any Japanese whisky in the Duty Free, but wished
me luck anyway. Undeterred, I figured there would surely be something at Dubai
airport – where we had to catch connecting flights in both directions, so I
wasn’t worried. Just to bring some of the excitement of purchasing booze
forward a little, I also decided I’d pick something up from the Duty Free at
Manchester Airport for consumption during
the holiday… something I suspect I’ll be doing more frequently from now on.
I figured a 35cl bottle would do, since I didn’t want to be
discouraged from picking up and opening extra things along the way.
I’d like to note at this point that there were three or four
Japanese single malts available in Manchester Airport’s Duty Free – Suntory
Hibiki, Yamazaki and the like. I’d already decided though, that I wanted to spend
less than £15 and get a single malt scotch. They had various expressions of
Glenfiddich in 20cl form, as well as the blend Johnnie Walker Blue in 35cl
format, but none fitted my idea of what I wanted to get for my money. I opted
for a 35cl bottle of Glenfarclas 10 year old. I’d never had this one before.
It’s a Speyside single malt, and is a pretty standard 40%. Next stop; Dubai.
Glenfarclas 10
Dubai Airport is like the hub of the whole world. It’s like
the cantina in Star Wars; people from all over the universe passing through on
their way elsewhere… It’s great seeing such a diverse range of people
peacefully coexisting and going about their business. Our schedule didn’t
afford us much time to hang out there this time, but there was ample
opportunity to scout out possible purchases for the return leg. As you might
expect, there was a lot of scotch, but once again, there were no Japanese
malts, so I would have to pin my hopes on Duty Free at Ho Chi Minh City, which
would be our departure point on the return leg.
On arriving at our hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, a good 15
hours or more (without sleep) after our 8pm departure from Manchester, I
considered postponing the opening of the Glenfarclas, to build up a bit of anticipation,
but then I thought… phuckit, I may as well try it now, on our balcony, in the
searing evening heat, in me pants.
HCMC
Here’s a picture of it out on the balcony. Unfortunately you
can’t feel the heat, hear the noise, or see me sitting in my pants, but take it
from me, it was hot and noisy and I was definitely sitting in my pants – photo
evidence of that exists, though if you saw it, you might think there were no
pants…
I was a bit disappointed to find that the bottle had a screwcap.
I think that’s the first time I’ve seen a single malt without a cork – even on
a 35cl bottle. Mind you, this was only the first 35cl bottle I’d ever bought,
and I think I’ve only ever owned one other, so it might be more common than I
think. You can let me know in the comments if you like.
If there was ever any doubt over my geek credentials, let me
just dispel the rumours by saying, yes, I did consider taking a Glencairn glass
with me, so that I might be able to give my purchase a proper nosing and
tasting. Common sense prevailed though, and I settled on using whatever type of
glass was provided in each hotel room. As a result perhaps, my tasting notes
are somewhat lacking. I’ve got nothing under ‘nose’, and under ‘palate’ all I
have is ‘soft, light and pleasingly oily – a little bit of sherry in there, I
think’.
That impression was gleaned progressively throughout
tastings in HCMC, Hanoi, Halong Bay and finally, Can Tho in the Mekong Delta,
where I polished it off while watching week old Premier League action on the
TV. My moment of maximum appreciation (which is now going to be a ‘thing’ that
will henceforth be abbreviated to MOMA – every bottle has one) came one night
previously in our honeymoon suite in Hanoi. Sweet and delicate. Nice. I think
I’ll buy this again some time. I wonder whether it benefited to some extent
from the hot and humid climate.
at Halong Bay
So how did I get on with procuring some Japanese single
malt? Well, I’ll tell you: I didn’t. On the whole trip – which took in several
destinations and airports – I only saw one bottle of Japanese single malt
whisky. It was in a fancy looking liquor store in Hanoi, and it didn’t have a
price on it. I didn’t bother asking as there seemed to be a family in there
having their evening meal. As I was flying back to HCMC the next day, and still
had some Glenfarclas, I didn’t want two glass bottles in my bag, pushing the
weight allowance and potentially causing breakage.
By this point I had decided that, should Duty Free in HCMC
be disappointing, I’d save my allowance (like I’m a teenager in a film from the
80s) until returning to Dubai, at which point I’d get a very reasonably priced
bottle of Wild Turkey 101 (50.5% ABV), like the first time I went to Canada. I
didn’t realise back then that whiskies were produced in different expressions,
so when Mrs Cake bought me a bottle of Wild Turkey a couple of years later,
I couldn’t figure out why it was only 40%, and wondered whether I had imagined
the stronger version.
Ultimately HCMC Airport did turn out to be disappointing,
the only highlight being a free sample of Camus Ile de Re Cliffside Cellar Cognac,
which I’d never heard of before, but saw throughout the airports of Vietnam.
They gave me a little dribble, and I wished I’d just poured my own without
asking. A full bottle was something like $110, but I could have had away with a
full plastic cup, and just wandered the airport sipping it if I’d been a bit
more daring. I don’t know if I could say a bottle would be worth as much as
that, but I did enjoy that little dribble.
Unfortunately I didn’t even get chance to pop back in to
Duty Free in Dubai, as our plane was boarding by the time we got to the gate.
Nevermind. I’d spent a bit more money than expected, and figured I’d just save
my budget and buy a bottle of Japanese single malt when I got home – I’d got
over £40 in Amazon vouchers to use, and that seems like a good way to spend
them. Once again, watch this space.
You can’t get drunk on three whiskies in 8 hours. You
just can’t.
I have a bit of a problem when it comes to flying long
distances – I’m one of those people who can’t sleep on a plane. I have to be
able to lay flat on my side, and that just ain’t happening. There is no lying
on your side in an airplane seat. I wonder why they don’t just do rows of bunks
on aircraft instead of seats. That would work a treat. Sure, it would make the
meals a little tricky, but I it would be totally worth the sacrifice.
No, no matter how tired I get, the most I can manage is a
fitful 20 minutes here and there. It does make you feel a little better, but
generally exacerbates the feeling that you are waking up in purgatory. In fact,
on a flight back from Canada some time ago, someone told me there was a product
I could buy in a pharmacy that would just put me out for the duration. Sounds
great, right? Fall asleep, wake up at your destination. No. It just made me even
more tired than I already was, but still unable to catch any zeds.
The only time I have been able to sleep for anything like a
decent amount of time on a plane was on our return from Malaysia, where we were
upgraded to Business Class. It was nice having all that room, and chairs that
recline almost (but not near enough) to flat, but even this was annoying
because they had three types of scotch in business class, of varying ages, that
I would have liked to have tried if I’d been awake on the rare occasions they
came round.
So, how was I going to deal with two consecutive flights of
around 8 hours each, starting at 8 in the evening, this time? Well, the benefit
of flying with airlines like Emirates is… that the alcohol is free. So I was
just going to drink whisky the whole way – and I was looking forward to that.
It’s surprising though, how challenging this can be. First
you have to wait for take off, after which it can take an age for the drinks
trolley to reach your seat. Then you have no idea how long it’s going to be
until next time. Maybe there will be a meal first, maybe not. You could just
keep calling the stewardess over, but you don’t want to be a dick demanding
drinks for 8 hours. They’re probably told to monitor alcohol intake. Then you
can’t just lose yourself in your book, or in listening to music or watching
films because you have to be on a constant state of alertness. If you’re not,
they just slink past, assuming you’re not going to want anything. We were also
in a kind of stewardess no-man’s land where it appeared they were about to
start every run with our row, but then they’d just fuck off and start right at
the back or right at the front and get to us last.
On the first flight (Manchester to Dubai), I managed a
paltry three drinks. That’s piss poor. In fact, I’m pretty sure I had to get up
and ask for one of them. I ask you.
The scotch in question was Johnnie Walker Red, which I
always profess to not being very fond of. I have to say though, I thoroughly enjoyed
it (at first). It was light and smooth, and I swear I could taste a bit of the
Caol Ila that is famously in there, though obviously it didn’t come anywhere near
the complexity of the Islay malt. It also lacked the sweetness. By my third though,
I had started to feel I was immune to its flavour, and needed something else.
Mrs Cake asked me if I was getting drunk. I said you can’t
get drunk on three whiskies in 8 hours. You just can’t.
Luckily on the second leg of the trip (Dubai to HCMC), I
learned that they also had Dewar’s White Label, which I hadn’t had before, and
was glad to be able to give it a try. It contains an element of the sweetness
that the JW Red lacks. I managed about 5 of these, which I thought was fairly good
going. At one point the steward actually gave me two at once (just in case). I
had started to order ‘whisky and coke’ so that I could knock back the coke for
refreshment before sipping the whisky at leisure for prolonged periods.
Except for the demoralising tiredness, tension over when I
could next request a drink, and strain of maintaining the degree of alertness
that facilitating consistent plane-drinking requires, it was a fairly enjoyable
flight. They need to get those drinks out a bit quicker and more frequently,
though.
I was hoping to have a nice booze buzz when I we arrived at
HCMC, but I was still sober as a judge.
On the way back I was a little less in the mood for
drinking, but there’s always some part of me that says, ‘you may as well’, so I
decided to see what kind of brandy they had, and it was Hennessey VSOP, another
I hadn’t tried previously. It was pretty good, and though I had only the one,
I’m fairly sure I enjoyed it more than the Courvoisier VSOP that I had a bottle
of some time ago. It’s smoother on the palate, and a bit less bitter on the
finish.
That then, concludes part 1 of Vietnamese booze tourism.
Join me next week for part two when I’ll be getting a bit more ensconced in
things that are actually Vietnamese and talking about beer, vodka and unusual
Vietnamese drinks – amongst other things.
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