In a change to this week’s planned post that I did myself
the favour of not advertising in advance, I’m going to take you back now to some
“research” that I did in July of this year. And by “research”, I mean drinking
heavily and playing golf in Spain - an event that we chose to christen Golfadeggon. San Javier in Murcia, was the location, where
there are more British per capita than there are in Manchester. That’s not necessarily
a fact; it’s just intended to give you an impression of how many British people
live and visit there. You don’t need a word of Spanish, but I found that you
can mightily impress the locals with just a tiny bit – one taxi driver was
bowled over when I handed him a two euro tip and said, “para ousted.”
“Oh-ho-ho! Speak Spanish!”
“Uh… un poco.”
With our flight at around 3pm, plans were made to meet at
the airport at 12.15 – for ‘a few scoops’. When I got that message from Chris,
I thought he meant he wanted to play golf before we went (if you knew him,
you’d understand), so I said, “no, I’d best not; I don’t want to mess up my
game before we even get there.”
A couple of days later I asked what time he wanted to meet
at the airport, and he asked if I’d been drunk the other night, since he’d
already told me – 12.15.
I wasn’t, as it happens, but now I understand what “a few scoops”
is; it’s a few drinks. I suppose that should go in the Booze Terminology
section…
So it came to pass that the four of us – myself, David,
Chris and John – met in the upstairs bar in Terminal 1 of Manchester Airport,
where they actually have some interesting beers on tap. I stuck with Amstel –
little did I know it would be wall to wall Amstel in San Javier, where it was
an astonishing 2.2 euros per pint up and down the strip.
One night I asked if they had any Spanish lager, whereupon
the English waiter said, “Amstel”, to which I replied, “Amstel isn’t Spanish”
and Chris chimed in with, “It’s Dutch.”
“Is it?” said the waiter. “I literally had no idea that was
the case.”
Amstel it was, then.
We did pick up some Estrella in the supermarket, but it
wasn’t the red kind you get in Barcelona. Instead the cans were green, and
looked to have been brewed in Murcia. Later, at the airport, we found some red
cans and discovered that the red variety is a noteworthy 5.4% ABV, while the
green is a disappointing-but-still-not-to-be-sniffed-at 4.8%.
Unfortunately, the green one isn’t as tasty as the red.
I was a little disappointed at the beer choices because I
like Spanish lager; Estrella, San Miguel, Cruzcampo, Alhambra, Mahou… they’re
all good. I suppose that’s what you get for going to a largely British resort.
Still, at least it wasn’t a choice between Carling and Fosters.
Since we were staying in an apartment on the golf complex –
as far from both the course itself, and the actual town as it was possible to
be… we made it top priority to get supplies in on the first night. I knew that
soft drinks, beer, bacon, eggs and bread would all be essential, but was
surprised to see everyone else’s baskets piled high with biscuits, sweets and
chocolate. I didn’t even pick up a basket because all I wanted was beer, whisky
and perhaps aguardiente de orujo.
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| DYC 10... |
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| ...and in the shower |
John had located a Spanish single malt, DYC 10 year old,
while I was still seeking out the booze aisle. “I want that. Where did you find
it?”
I hotfooted it off to get one of my own. It’s packaged in a
chunky Bruichladdich style bottle, weighs in at a standard 40% and cost under
15 euros.
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That very evening I cracked it open, eased out the oversized
cork, and sampled the malty goodness. I had actually been looking for the DYC 8
year old blend that scored a remarkable 90 in Jim Murray’s 2013 Whisky Bible [clean
and cleverly constructed, he says, “Just so enjoyable!”]… but they didn’t have
that. I figured a 10 year old single malt must surely be even more interesting,
though I didn’t recall reading anything about it in the guide. Well, we all
liked it anyway. Light-bodied and easy-drinking, we would get through three
bottles of this between us over the course of the week.
David also bought a Spanish blended whisky called John Cor.
That one was under 5 euros, and John confessed to preferring it over the DYC.
I uh… don’t remember too much about the John Cor. It
certainly wasn’t bad – for 5 euros – but I don’t think I’d want to pay too much
more for it. Spirits are so cheap in Spain as a matter of course that you don’t
ever need to buy anything that cheap. It becomes more the sort of thing that
you go, “well, if this is only 11 euro, I may as well also get this
at 5 euro”, because it’s still cheaper than a bottle of Bells at home,
and you’re getting two interesting new bottles.
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| Chris' Johnnie Walker Red (after a day) |
Chris went for a Johnnie Walker Red, which he finished off
in a little over two days – with coke, I might add – but he can’t drink beer
like the rest of us and cider can be hard to find in Spain, so he had to have something
to rely on.
As a result of all this freely flowing booze, my poor
hipflask didn’t get a look-in. One swig on the first day was all it got, and
ever after it was just sat on the kitchen counter. I had considered taking it
on a round of golf with me, but the need to maximise my performance asserted
itself from day one, and by the 5th of the 6 rounds I had started
playing the best golf of my life and didn’t want to jeopardise getting a great
score.
I did get my best ever score for the course we played (which
I had played 5 times previously, two years ago) – 118, but it still wasn’t a great score. And that wasn’t even on the
days when I was playing my best golf! On the best days I was striking the ball
beautifully, but hitting all the hazards and getting some rotten luck. Still, I
now feel great about golf again – no doubt until my next round, when I’ll
realise I’ve forgotten the technique that started working so well for me.
Our general routine for the next week revolved around golf, booze
and food. If we had a morning round it would be up and out, a breakfast of
Coca-Cola and chocolate, followed by lunch and a couple of pints at the
clubhouse after the golf, before swimming, cans, possibly a snooze, and a
shower at the apartment before heading to the main drag where the evening would
be spent eating and drinking at the various bars and restaurants.
We took in some of the entertainment, which was limited to
one-man tribute acts singing to recordings, and in one place for which we had
free drinks vouchers, a Michael Jackson act that was a guy dancing to a live
Michael Jackson video… Chris spent about an hour at the bar trying to get our
free mojitos in there.
If we had an afternoon round, it would be a lie in, followed
by lounging around, golf, a couple of pints at the clubhouse, a shower and
straight out for dinner and more drinks. I tried to take a whisky into the
shower with me every day, as any good alcothusiast should.
We got a couple of games of poker in, using lightweight
Monopoly money instead of chips, but I was having no luck. I think we were all
pretty smashed by the time we got down to it anyway, so there was far less
caution and far less tension that there usually is.
Time at the clubhouse and on the strip was invariably
accompanied by an opening period of silence as everyone got onto the various
free wi-fi and played Super Stickman Golf 2 and Wordfeud – intermittently
glancing up to watch for passing freaks and ghouls. The pints go down easy, and
the food, while unadventurous, is good. Being lads, we nary saw a vegetable the
whole time we were there. It was pretty much meat, chips and bread all the way.
So 108 holes of golf, and seven days after arrival, the day
of departure came. It was beer for breakfast for me, as we still had a few cans
left. We followed that up with an afternoon sat in a bar on the strip, eating
chicken wings and drinking beers until it was time to get to the airport… and
Duty Free – one last thing to look forward to.
I had decided to get at least one purchase in before the
airport because I figured there was a risk – with Murcia Airport being tiny –
that there wouldn’t be much choice on offer. I’d been hoping to get one of
those exclusive to international travel Highland Park expressions, but knew the
chances of this would be low.
I called at the supermarket a day or two early then to pick
up a bottle of the standard Cutty Sark blended scotch (40% ABV). It’s readily
available throughout Spain, but much harder to find in the UK. It features in
my 101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die book, and at 11 euro, is perfect
for a casual purchase, leaving room for further acquisitions later on. It was
tempting to get something else at this time too, since you can nearly bring
back as much as you want, but I was worried about the possibilities of breakages
within my golf travel bag. The stingey weight allowance on Jet2 of 20kg doesn’t
allow for much clothing alongside your golf clubs to pad out the contents.
Duty free was slightly disappointing, but there was still
enough there to choose from. There are two shops selling booze, but from what I
remember, the only scotch on offer is the standard Glenfiddich 12. Instead I focused
on the Spanish stuff, where in the second of the two shops I found the DYC 8 (40%
ABV) that I had been looking for. It was only 14 euro, so I figured I may as
well get something else as well, and went back to the first shop to get some
Gran Duque D’Alba Solera Gran Riserva brandy de Jerez that was 20% off at 21
euro. The Cardinal Mendoza was there too, but I decided to try something
different this time.
A good haul really, and one that leaves me with 6 unopened
bottles of spirits back at the old homestead. I’ve decided to finish one or two
before I open anything new, but with me, you know that’s not going to be long.
It wasn’t all good outcomes. Despite a lovely enthusiastic
welcome from Mrs Cake, we discovered the week long alcohol abuse has left me with
a vastly inflated belly. I’m hoping that works itself off naturally, since with
my back, sit-ups are out of the question. On top of that, because of all the
holiday cigars, I just felt so dirty – and not in a good way. At least, not just
in the good way. I mean, I always have that general background feeling of
dirtiness anyway. That ain’t going nowhere.
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So, let me see, were there any particularly funny moments? I
don’t remember anyone falling over in a comical manner or anything like that
but… Chris’ profligate swearing through the various rounds of golf had us all
laughing. One time he exclaimed, “You son of a fuck!” which we soon transposed
into “Son of a fucking fuck” and rode on for the rest of the week.
There was one time on the course where David had a
particularly tricky bunker to get out of, and hit two or three shots before the
ball jumped out into the heavy rough just in front of the bunker. On his next
shot the ball jumped right back into the bunker where it began. Oh, I howled
with laughter. I don’t think that’s considered good etiquette on a golf course,
but it lightens the mood, and I’d prefer people to laugh at me when something
like that happens, than they remain po-faced.
There was definitely a lot of laughing, but those are the
instances of note that I recall.
I’m not sure I’ll be able to justify tagging along next year
too with further booze tourism adventures already in the planning stage, but
definitely the year after that.
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| Gran Duque d'Alba |
So I hope you’ve enjoyed the brief travelogue and have had a
terrific weekend so far. I’ll see you next week with something else, hopefully.
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