Budget Supermarket Showdown: Aldi vs Lidl part 1

Intro

Aldi and Lidl – they’re quite similar aren’t they? Though only one of them (Lidl) smells like fish food. Both are budget supermarkets, both European, both have their own branded goods… and to that end, they each have their own [apparently] exclusive brands of alcohol. It makes you wonder; which is best?

I don’t mind telling you, I do most of my shopping at Aldi, and I definitely prefer the atmosphere in [most] Aldis to that of Lidl, though I rarely buy booze there. It doesn’t mean I haven’t. I started out drinking the 8 year old blended scotch, Highland Black as I’ve told you several times before. I’ve also tried the white and dark rum varieties of Old Hopking, the Vinelli vermouth, Oliver Cromwell gin, Tamova vodka, Ballycastle Irish Cream, Clarke’s bourbon… there’s more to try, but what I’ve tended to conclude over the years is that Aldi’s quality is all right – for the price…

But what about Lidl? It’s about time we found out isn’t it?

It would be nice to do direct comparisons and get this out of the way pretty quickly, but there are too many products to choose from, so I think it makes more sense to handle this on more of an ongoing, cumulative basis. Furthermore, there are a number of products that aren’t directly comparable.

I think what I’ll do then, for the time being, is alternate purchases between one and the other and attribute scores – either out of 10 or on some other maniacal, arbitrary scale that I make up as I go along.

Part 1

It’s time then, for part 1. After a very lean month, pay day made its merry way around and the Cakemeister decided he wanted to spend some money and headed out at lunchtime to the nearby Lidl. I think I was in part inspired by a new blog I found, Booze Review in which budget brands of alcohol are consumed and reviewed.

On arrival at the booze aisle, I can’t say I wasn’t tempted by the blended malt, but at £19.99 it was more than I’d planned to relinquish at that point. What I plumped for was the James Cook Premium 3 year old rum (£12.99, 40% ABV). My Mount GayEclipse was on the wane, and I’d been holding back on finishing it for some time, so the need seemed more pressing than for the other spirits, such as the brandy that was also calling me – I was after all, due a holiday in Spain in another month, so it seemed sensible to sort that one there. Being used to budget products being relatively low strength in the main, I figured that at 40% I couldn’t go wrong here.

James Cook has a hue… not unlike urine… in fact, very much so like urine. We won’t let that bother us though, we’ll just hope it isn’t representative of the quality of this particular spirit. The bottle is quite authentic looking, in that it doesn’t at first glance look total shit, though there is a clue in how it is non-specific about where its contents come from – just the Caribbean in general… and presumably blended in Germany.

I opened the bottle early one Saturday evening, and poured a generous measure into a glencairn glass to begin the nosing. I was immediately struck by how unusual the aroma was, light and citrusy. It all led me to expect that this might provide a taste experience more akin to a nice blended scotch than a cheap, bitey gold rum.

How wrong I was. I made some notes on my phone that reveal an accelerating realisation of horror – like in a film where they do that camera shot that zooms in on a face while the backdrop falls away…

It was like that scene in Peep Show where Mark goes jogging for the first time and his first impression of how easy it is rapidly evaporates as he tires and realises jogging is hard work, and what an idiot he was to have gotten the wrong idea a mere matter of seconds before.

Going to my notes, I see I have literally written:

“Weird, spicy, dirty… but not in a good way. Oh, it’s fucking awful. It burns. It’s making me feel a bit ill. I can’t drink it. It’s going in the sink…“

That is literally the first time ever I’ve felt that I have wasted my money on something that I’m not going to be able to drink. I’m serious, I will not be trying this neat again. By my third sip the taste was so offensive that I wouldn’t even try this with ice. I doubt you could even mix the evil out of it. I will try that, mind.

Usually bad spirits make decent hip flask fodder – or so previous experience had suggested… I can see now that there is an underclass of spirits that aren’t just bad, they are probably actually poison. Either that, or what I have thought of as hip flask fodder before aren’t actually bad… they just aren’t particularly good.

The Sauza tequila was pretty bad, but it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t knock back a few shots to get the party started. Instinctive reactions (and probably the gag reflex) would prevent me from even trying that with this. Any thoughts of sticking it in my hip flask for the following day’s Sounds From the Other City festival were quickly quashed by common sense. That would be a surefire way of taking a hip flask on a night out and still not getting hammered.

All I could think was that this might be a good thing to let friends try, just to demonstrate how bad alcohol can be. But I wouldn’t even subject them to it.

You might think I’m exaggerating a bit here, but I am serious: I have never tasted a spirit as bad as this – let alone one that made me feel ill after a couple of sips. I don’t know what that overbearing flavour is, but it is familiar, and it must be from nightmares. It brings to mind celery, but even celery isn’t as bad as all that.

A little searchy-search of the internets suggests that the dark variety of James Cook might not be all that bad, however they do say once bitten, twice shy¸  and therefore there is no way I am staking any of my wages against the quality of another product sold under the James Cook label. It just couldn’t possibly be worth it.

And for that reason I have to determine that Lidl have scored a massive own goal, such that the only way I can figure to give a score for this in my as yet unidentified scoring system is to give it a negative score. So minus 10 for you there, Lidl. I’ve actually been keeping a ranking system for all the various types of spirits, and James Cook is so bad that even though there are only 9 other rums on the list at this point, I have ranked it in 100^th place. And if I ever get around to ranking another 90 brands of rum, I’m confident this will still be a lot worse than the worst of them (I only rank based on full bottles experienced, not individual tastes – just so you know).

The good news is that I did go on to try this in a random summer cocktail that I made up, and it didn’t totally ruin it – but there were a lot of strong flavours in there; spiced rum, lemon juice, limoncello, orange juice and dry cider.

As time progressed, the James Cook just sat on top of the cupboard, going nowhere, doing nothing until one day I decided to pour it down the sink. I think there’s a bit of a gleam around the plughole now, though the cheap alcohol smell lingered for longer than I care to remember.

It may be some time before I risk any further Lidl purchases, but I suppose I have to if I’m going to maintain the integrity of this Aldi vs Lidl alcohol comparison. Until I do, let’s assign arbitrary scores out of 10 to the Aldi and Lidl products I’ve tried in the past with some useful notes.

Aldi Recap

Old Hopking White Rum – 6  - a sad 37.5% alcohol and only £10 at time of purchase. Nothing offensive about it that is going to ruin your cocktails. Should you buy it? You may as well.

Old Hopking Dark Rum – 7 – also 37.5% alcohol and sadly, I can’t remember how much it was the last time I bought it. Quality is consistent with its pigmentally challenged brother. In all fairness it is about on par with the Captain Morgan though the alcohol content is lacking.

Ballycastle Irish Cream – 7 – only 14.5% alcohol and a little thin, but if you like Irish Cream, there’s no reason you aren’t going to like this. When I last bought it it was a bargainous £3.99, though I think it has since risen to around £4.29.

Ballycastle Premium Irish Cream – 9 – ah, a budget Irish Cream that matches up to Bailey’s 17% alcohol. That’s more like it. Originally available at £5.99 (though subsequently at an increased cost of £6.49), this has a richness so close to that of Bailey’s that you’d be insane to pass it up.

Tamova vodka (blue) – 6 – an average “premium” supermarket vodka that at least has the decency to chalk up 40 ABVs.

Oliver Cromwell London Dry Gin – 4 – at 37.5% it’s suitable for mixing, but not worth writing more than 4 words about.

Vinelli Dry Vermouth – 6 – my introduction to the world of vermouth and as such I didn’t have anything to compare it to at the time – much less did I know what to do with it. Nonetheless, it’s decent enough.

Notable by their absence:

Highland Black 8 – one of the very first brands of scotch I ever bought and, as such impossible to comment on as I didn’t have anything to compare it to, nor any idea what scotch was even supposed to be like at the time. One day I’ll buy another bottle.

Clarke’s Bourbon – I mentioned that I’ve tried this one, and it also featured in my “review” of Jack Daniel’s but sadly I only got to try a couple of measures, so it wouldn’t be fair to score it here.

Lidl Recap

Putinoff Platinum Vodka (blue) – 6 – an average vodka that is entirely on par with Aldi’s alternative.

James Cook Premium Rum 3 year old - -10 – well, you know about this one now so let’s never speak of it again.

Coming Soon

Since beginning this post and indeed the whole experiment, I’ve been appraising Aldi’s Cocobay Coconut-Flavoured Rum Liqueur, their Glen Orrin 5 year old blended malt and their Specially Selected Irish Cream. You’ll be able to read about those in the coming months. As far as Lidl is concerned, I picked up the Queen Margot blended scotch (though that’s David’s birthday present) and a Romanetti Extra Dry vermouth. So again, check back another time for updates.

Since purchases have clearly been weighted in favour of Aldi so far, a simple totting up doesn’t suffice here, so instead I’ll take an average score. That means Aldi currently stands on an encouraging 6.43 out of 10, while Lidl racks up a confusing -2 out of 10. It is clear that I need to be visiting Lidl a few more times in the coming months to see if any of their products can raise that score out of the gutter. I’ll see you then, next week when I think I’m going to be talking about Rosso vermouth, a budget brand I picked up from Tesco. 

Distilgrimage... Part One

Good evening! Yes, I’m finally back from Vietnam. I say ‘finally’, as if I wouldn’t rather be there, but believe me… I would. It was awesome, and I can’t wait to tell you all about it (I hope you enjoyed the tweets), but first… I need to get around to writing about it. Don’t worry though, this week’s post is something else I’ve been looking forward to giving you for a while. It’s part one of a two part account of my trip with the missus to the island of Islay. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… Distilgrimage (part one).

800+ miles… 2 days travelling, 9 hours each way… 2 days tasting… 6 distilleries… 5 tastings… 3 tours… 19 whiskies… 2 new-make spirits and 1 gin sampled… 3 new bottles… 6 new glasses.

Given those stats, I can only be talking about a weekend on the island of Islay, off the western coast of Scotland. Yes, do you remember me asking in my previous ‘review’ of Ian Buxton’s 101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die, is it worth visiting more than one distillery? How different can they be? Well, I will come to answer those two questions in the course of these next two posts because, for my birthday, Mrs Cake decided to treat me to a weekend away at the home of several of my favourite whiskies – in fact, the birthplace of scotch whisky itself,  in what would come to be known as our Distilgrimage - a name that makes perfect sense since, like a pilgrimage, it was a long fricking way, and it was a spiritual experience – which is both a pun and attempt to ascribe some kind of poetic significance to proceedings. Just go with it.

I had known Mrs Cake was planning something, and I had an inkling that it would be a weekend away – it’s kind of obvious when you are required to book a couple of days off work. I also remembered telling her that maybe one day I’d quite like to visit a distillery, but I had no idea how much effort she would put into it. If it had been me, we’d have gone to Edinburgh, and I would have found the nearest distillery to there. Not Mrs Cake, she knows I’m partial to the peaty goodness of Islay (Caol Ila, Bruichladdich and Laphroaig were already firm favourites), so she pulled out all the stops and on my birthday presented me with a full colour itinerary (I bet her work is pleased about that) detailing what we would be up to come the 21^st of February 2013.

Journey

It’s a long way to Islay (from Manchester). It’s a fairly long way to Scotland, and I never expected I’d have any particular excuse to go there again, but it’s a really long way to Islay. That doesn’t matter though, I like a good road trip, and the missus and I had been needing something like this for a while since our working lives hadn’t been seeming to get along with us, and as a result, us with each other. We always have a great time on holiday though.

I jiggled my hours about at work, and arranged for a 3 o clock finish on the Thursday. We’d packed the night before, so it was straight home, load the car, get going.

I’d requested some bangin’ hip-hop for the journey, but Mrs Cake had sadly missed the mark, picking the worst of Ghostface Killah’s albums, and frankly nothing I’d been hoping for. Nevermind – we at least got right into the People Under the Stairs’ Highlighter album.

We set off not long before 4pm. Mrs Cake had booked us a hotel by Loch Lomond to rest up in in advance of an early ferry the next morning. We arrived at the hotel, starving, at 9.30pm. As we approached the entrance, I could see the chef wearing one of those flame coloured chef caps through the window, drinking a can of Special Brew. It turned out though, that the kitchen was already closed, and all they could offer us was soup and a sandwich. They had a well-stocked bar, but all I fancied was a pint and bed, being exhausted from the journey. I had just enough energy to watch Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe, and despite having brought my bottle of Scapa (coals to Newcastle?) I didn’t even bother getting it out.

The ferry was scheduled to depart from Kennacraig at 9.45 the next morning, but we had to be there by 9.15. It was roughly a two hour drive from the hotel, so that meant we had to leave while it was still dark, and before our hotel started serving breakfast. That was fine with me, as I feel nervous eating breakfast when I have to be somewhere at a certain time.

On the way the satnav decided to send us down a weird side road that we determined couldn’t be right, so we turned back after a bit and just went the way that seemed logical. I joked that maybe we should change the voice on the satnav to a man’s, since he would probably be better at reading maps.

Mrs Cake was getting flustered, but I reassured her that we still had plenty of time, and if we missed the ferry, we’d just have to get the next one. We made it to the ferry for 9.05, so it was all good anyway.

satnav does not show the boat

The ferry takes around two hours, and it’s comfortable enough. The scenery’s nice, as you’d expect from Scotland, but the wind was blowing cold so I didn’t stay outside for long. I’d wanted to be on deck to see Islay approaching, since I’d heard you can see Laphroaig from the ferry, but for some reason you can’t get to the front of the boat. It wouldn’t really have mattered, as I learned on the way back that the boat comes out of port, then turns 90 degrees left, so you can see Laphroaig on the left hand side. Coming into port of course, it would be visible on the right. Nevertheless, I got a couple of pictures on the way back. I’m estimating the distillery was about a mile away, but you can see it quite clearly.

All the TVs were on on the ferry, and were showing Homes Under the Hammer for some reason. We’d both left our books in the car, so it was a waiting game. Thankfully, time goes quicker as you get older, so it didn’t seem to take that long. In theory that should mean that the faster time goes, the closer to death you are, so you ought to have some kind of clue as to when you’re actually going to die because right before, time will be going really fast.  I’ve seen old people though, and they don’t seem to be noticing. Perhaps you don’t when you’re in the moment, it’s only afterwards, and if you’re dead there isn’t an afterwards anyway…

Where was I? Ah yes, arrival on Islay. Mrs Cake had made a reservation for us at the Islay Hotel in Port Ellen, which is literally on your left as soon as you get off the ferry. She picked this one for two very good reasons:

1. We wouldn’t have to worry too much about getting to the ferry in time for the trip back
2. The distilleries of Laphroaig, Lagavulin and Ardbeg are within a brisk walking distance (of sorts), so that would mean we could potentially get hammered and not worry about having to drive.

Day One

Mrs Cake hadn’t booked any distillery tours for our first day, but on arrival we decided to head straight out and try the triumvirate of classic distilleries that were just down the road. Not actually being sure whether it was walkable (a map suggested it was a distance of 5km between the three), we decided to drive to the furthest first (Ardbeg), just to see how far the others were, and potentially drive back before walking to them later.

Nearly everyone we passed waved to us as we went by, which was certainly a nice welcome, but since we weren’t expecting it we didn’t always get chance to wave back. Sorry about that, people of Islay.

The three distilleries are all on the same road, and Laphroaig is definitely walkable. Lagavulin should be possible also, but the road narrows and winds somewhat before you reach Ardbeg. There’s no footpath and the grass verge was a little bushy and looked heavy going. We reached Ardbeg in just a couple of minutes and headed inside where their café was doing a roaring trade. We perused the gift shop while we waited for a table, since lunch was well on the cards by this point.

A lady told us that for £5 we could have a table tasting alongside lunch if we wanted, and that seemed like a good idea. They have a good range of tours, which you can read about here (http://www.ardbeg.com/ardbeg/distillery/tours), and I forget why we didn’t join one. I think that with it starting at 3pm, we would be waiting around a while, and we thought we wouldn’t get time to get to Lagavulin and Laphroaig that afternoon if we did.

So we had lunch, planning to have our table tasting afterwards. As we ate though, the café continued to get busier, so we thought they might want to use our table. We were told instead that we could have our tasting in what they call The Chairman’s Study. That’s a small room at the end of the bar that houses a wide range of Ardbeg expressions, ranging from standard to very rare. We would only be tasting four current expressions, Blasda, 10 year old, Uigeadail and Corryvreckan.

You’ll be pleased to hear that they are all damn good. I’d only tried the 10 year old before, but had already heard good things about Uigeadail. That one and the Corryvreckan are both cask strength and, along with the 10 year old, are very peaty. Blasda is actually only lightly peated in comparison. You get to learn all about phenols and parts per million, and it’s interesting to think you can taste something that consists of only 8 parts in a million.

I’d just like to note at this point that I added a drop or two of water to the cask strength whiskies, and again at certain other points during the trip, and if you’ve ever read that when adding water, you should ideally try to get the same kind of spring water as was used to produed the whisky… none of the distilleries bother with that – and they’re probably the only ones who could! In fact, if you raise this point, they’re likely to look at you like you’re an imbecile. So that’s something you can stop worrying about. I’m thinking it’s probably best to use your own tap water, since you’re probably used to the taste of that, and therefore you won’t notice it. That’s one to try next time I get something cask strength.

Incidentally, Laphroaig’s water source dried up fairly recently, so I guess it’s wasteful to bottle it when you could be making special whisky with it.

That tasting became the first of a number of freebies that the various distilleries threw our merry way over the next few days. On its culmination I asked the young girl who had done the hosting if I just gave her the £5, and she said don’t worry about it. ‘I won’t tell anyone,’ I said, but I just have. Anyway, it seems to be standard practice, so nothing to worry about.

When it came to buying souvenirs, I was considering buying a bottle from Ardbeg (I’ve been wanting one for some time), but decided to wait until I’d been to a few more distilleries before making a choice.

Before getting back in the car, we walked down to the sea to get a picture of the building that has ‘Ardbeg’ written on the side. We also saw quite a few barrels sitting out there, and got some photos of those too. Of course we were tempted to reverse the car up, and try to get one in the back. That would actually be the only time we would see any barrels on the trip (aside from one other – the cask that Bruichladdich lets you fill your own 50cl bottle from for £55). For some reason, none of the distilleries would take us into their storage facilities. Caol Ila would later tell us that it was for Customs and Excise reasons. I know they don’t have many on site at that particular distillery, but other than the still themselves, thousands of barrels of whisky, peacefully aging in a warehouse is what I want to see the most! Could they not have a big glass window or something, that you could look through?

On with the crawl. Mrs Cake isn’t into whisky, so driving duties passed to her. She was able to have a sip of each sample while I finished the rest, so I left with a happy buzz and we headed over to Lagavulin, not bothering with the driving back to the hotel and walking thing after all.

We were greeted at Lagavulin by a lovely lady called Marjorie, who informed us that a tour would be starting in half an hour, if we would care to wait – just in case some more people turned up (no one did). It would be £6, and we would receive a free branded Glencairn glass and a sample of the expression of our choice at the end. Alternatively, we could have a tasting of the three expressions, which would also be £6. Well, there were two of us, which meant we would be able to sample two of the three expressions between us if we took the tour, and Glencairn glasses were £5 in the gift shop (and indeed in the gift shops of all the various distilleries we would eventually visit), so the tour seemed like the best deal – especially since I’d tried the Lagavulin 16 before, so I only needed to taste two. We decided to wait, and had a nice chat with Marjorie while we did.

Marjorie led the tour herself (in fact, all the tours we took were led by women), and it was informative, friendly and conversational. Mrs Cake asked a ton of questions and Marjorie proved her knowledge to be extensive. We saw the old malting fire which isn’t in use anymore as the grain for all the distilleries on Islay is malted at the large Port Ellen plant – where they also used to make whisky, but sadly no more – as well as the mill, the mash tun, wash back (?) and finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for, as the French would say, the still room.

Marjorie let us taste the wash out of one of the tubs, which is essentially warm beer, and quite tasty, before throwing the remainder back in the tub. We wondered about hygiene, but apparently it literally makes no difference, as all this is going to be boiled at the distilling stage anyway.

Lagavulin and indeed Caol Ila are sister distilleries under the authoritarian father-figure of Diageo – the giant company that also owns Guinness, Smirnoff, Gordon’s, Captain Morgan and a whole slew of whisky producers – and as such are subject to the ‘no photographs on any part of the tour’ rule, which explains why I’ve no pictures for you here. The reason apparently, is that a lot of the other distilleries owned by Diageo get many many times more visitors, and it causes delays to their tours. Quite why they should make this a blanket policy to cover tours that consist of just two people doesn’t really make sense to me, but there you go.

I heard also that in the past, tour guides had been known to allow sneaky photos, but ended up getting in trouble when the same tourists went to another distillery and complained when they weren’t allowed to take photos there, stating that they had been allowed to at Lagavulin. Why anyone would want to get their guide in trouble like that, I couldn’t say – I certainly wouldn’t. Knowing that I was going to tell you about all this, I didn’t even take a sneaky photo, but don’t worry, there will be a photo of a still in part two of this travelogue, thanks to Bruichladdich where they aren’t subject to such strict discipline – yet – and a couple of pictures of the giant stills at Caol Ila… through a window.

Finally then, we were led into a comfortable drawing room and invited to select which of the three expressions we would like to try. We passed over the 16 year old (which is reputed to be the best), instead selecting the cask strength 12 year old and the limited edition that was finished in sherry casks. Mrs Cake liked the sherry finish, but I wasn’t overly fond of either on this occasion. Not that they were bad! No, but let’s just say I hadn’t found one of my purchases yet.

Before she left us, Marjorie also gave us our Classic Malts passports which entitle us to free tours at 11 other distilleries – one of them being Caol Ila. Mrs Cake hadn’t actually booked us a tour at Caol Ila in advance, instead opting for the Premium Tasting, so we thought these might prove useful. They did, but much more on that in part 2!

Don’t go anywhere just yet, there’s one more distillery to go before the end of day 1, and while there’s less to tell about this one, I’m sure you’ll want to stay and find out because it’s the legendary Laphroaig.

Laphroaig was probably the first single malt that I ever truly loved, though the early romance has cooled somewhat over the last few years as I came to explore so many other styles and products. Even so, I still hold the distillery in some reverence.

It was about 4.15pm when we arrived, and we’d missed any tours but that didn’t mean we couldn’t pop into the bustling gift shop and see about having a little tasting in the last 15 minutes they were open, which we did, and they allowed us to for free.

I’d tried the 10 year old and Quarter Cask expressions before, and figured they probably wouldn’t want to let me try the 25 and 30 year olds they had there. Mrs Cake asked anyway, and they said they didn’t open them. That left the Triple Wood and 18 year old, that they did let us try, though I barely got a dribble of the 18 year old! I didn’t make any notes, and it is difficult to give a full appraisal from a single taste, but I’d have to say I liked the 18 without being sure whether I’d like to shell out £70 for a bottle, while the Triple Wood had a strong and not particularly pleasant finish that I remembered from my own bottle of Caol Ila 18 year old – an expression we later learned is quite rare now. Check me out.

I thought then, that I probably wouldn’t make a Laphroaig one of my purchases on this occasion either, though I will return at some time in the future. I did make sure to get a branded Glencairn glass though, as well as some cheese that is made with Laphroaig. I don’t recall now, but I thought that cost £2.50, while Mrs Cake says it was £3.50. There was also a pair of spectacles on the counter, black with a large white L on them, that given the breadth of branded products you can get, made us consider that maybe they were official Laphroaig spectacle frames, but no, they belonged to one of the Belgian or Norwegian tourists who were busily getting their expensive purchases in.

I’ve tried the cheese now, and despite the fact that it is made of only 1.6% whisky, you can really taste it. On numerous occasions in the past, Mrs Cake and I have tried a product like this and found traces of the special ingredient nowhere. The bad news though, is that in my opinion, the cheese isn’t particularly nice. I’m sure some people will get a lot of enjoyment out of it, but sadly not I. Nevermind.

Well, that concludes part one of the Islay Distilgrimage Adventure. We had dinner and whatnot that evening, but it wasn’t particularly whisky-related, so not for inclusion here. I may as well give the Islay Hotel its due though, and say its restaurant was pretty good. I’m not a food blogger, so I’m not going to get all specific or glowing on you, but I’d recommend it if you’re staying on Islay one of these days. Come to think of it, the bar was fairly impressively stocked...

Join me next week then, for part two, in which we’ll be visiting the distilleries of Bruichladdich and Caol Ila and making some purchases. It will most likely be a quiet weekend for me – feeling the strain of holiday expenses – but with all the booze I’ve got, that doesn’t mean I can’t have a party. Tonight I’m thinking I’ll compare the bootleg longan wine that I bought in Vietnam for £4 with my £48 bottle of Domenis Blanc e Neri grappa, so that will be fun. Tomorrow will be, you know, similar. I er… forgot that I’d splashed out (£5.99)  on the premium Ballycastle Irish Cream from Aldi before I went away, so I might give that one an airing. Then there’s always other things burning a hole in their bottles…

Other than that, it’s time to get back to normal life after the holiday – shopping, cooking and all that. I’ve promised Mrs Cake I’ll make her a birthday cake, so along with my first round of golf since the first week in January, that’s Saturday taken care of.

There’s still plenty to look forward to and to blog about, so keep coming back and inbetween times, follow me on twitter (@alcothusiast) where I’ll be giving you tasters of what’s to come and generally trying to be funny.

Have a good one, and see you later!

Monster Cocktails - part 1: The Cowgirl

Welcome to part one of Monster Cocktails, a new feature about what happens when (potentially good) cocktails go bad.

First up, The Cowgirl. It’s a sexy sounding drink, consisting of peach schnapps and Baileys. Here it is:

 

That’s what it’s supposed to look like, anyway. The layered effect is achieved by pouring the Baileys on to a bar spoon placed over the peach schnapps [perhaps pouring the Schnapps onto the Baileys would make a Reverse Cowgirl?]. I didn’t have a bar spoon (or indeed the exact right kind of glass), but how different can a bar spoon be to a normal teaspoon? Oh.

 

My effort turned out like this. It looks cool as hell; like a brain floating in a jar but… you couldn’t serve that to someone.

I drank it anyway, but I was only getting the schnapps at first – which I actually enjoyed. The Baileys just kept itself to itself, well away from the lip of the glass. You may remember from an earlier story that I can’t drink peach schnapps anymore… well that turned out to be false. It’s just that I hadn’t tried. 

After a while I decided to bring the Baileys into the party, and mixed it up with my finger, but it just kind of congealed into a creamy pink sperm that had to be drunk in lumps and chewed. That killed off any enjoyment, and made me feel perhaps like I was the cowgirl…

I’m including a picture of the recipe for you, so please give this drink a go. Even if it goes wrong, it only costs a little bit of peach schnapps and little bit of Baileys (or Aldi’s Ballycastle) and if you could post the results on here, that would be great.

Budget Brands, and what I did at the weekend

I stated in a previous post that it isn’t necessary to stock up on all the best or prestige brands. If you’re making cocktails you really don’t want to waste the good stuff, so a good standard brand or even a decent supermarket’s own brand will suffice in most cases. If you’re lucky, you might even find a cheap bottle that you can drink on its own.

 

The king of budget brands for me is Aldi’s 8 year old blended scotch, Highland Black. There’s also a non-aged variety called Highland Earl, but I haven’t tried that one. At £11.99, Highland Black is an affordable alternative when you’re out of ‘the good stuff’ and don’t have £20-£30 to be spending on a (cheap) single malt. It’s probably not one of those ‘savour every drop’ sippers, but add a bit of ice and all you’re missing is a nice cigar.

 

I have read somewhere online that Highland Black isn’t actually scotch, and that it’s made in Australia. However, the cap says, “product of Scotland” and the label says, “distilled, blended and bottled in Scotland”. So, seriously; I’m going to have to accept that it is scotch. Frankly, the source of the controversy isn’t reliable – an anonymous customer review that I can’t find now, having just had another cursory scan…

 

For an affordable, entry level blend that you can keep returning to, I recommend it.

Having gotten a little carried away with the idea of testing budget brands for their drinkability, I trialled a glass of Tesco’s attractive ‘Budget’ brandy, while watching an episode of An Idiot Abroad 2 recently. I seem to remember buying it at least 4 years ago for £7.99, for use in cooking. Haven’t even done much cooking with it… but yeah,  it’s drinkable… if you’re desperate, I suppose.

Another one I tried was Tesco’s Imperial vodka. That one has the merit of having a more authentic looking bottle (than the Value brandy), not being named after a Russian literary figure, and being cheaper than your standard Smirnoff… which I’m coming to think of more and more as a mixer drink only.

A full investigation into vodka and its uses will be necessary in the future, but for now I just want to say that I wondered whether the Imperial vodka was drinkable in its own right. So I stuck it in the freezer for an hour or so, and poured a measure into one of the ‘vodka glasses’ (pictured below) that I’d bought in the Habitat closing down sale.  And you know what? It was all right. It’s been a while since I’ve drunk vodka seriously, so I don’t really have any field of reference, but if it’s drinkable neat, it’s got to be ok, right? 

I used to be particularly fond of Stolichnaya, and I’ve been itching to get hold of another bottle for a while, so I’ll have to make that happen pretty soon.

Now, it’s time to move onto the fallout from the weekend’s events. You might remember that Friday night’s plan involved my fiancée Brenda taking part in a blind taste test, pitting the king of Irish Creams, Bailey’s against Aldi’s cheap pretender, Ballycastle.

Brenda had read my Friday post before leaving work, and she arrived home quite excited about the prospect, so we wasted little time in pouring two drinks over ice, which was how Brenda wanted it. You’ll notice from the booze porn that the Bailey’s was a miniature bottle. It had been hanging around a while, and I can’t remember where we got it from. The Ballycastle has been hanging around longer than the bottle says you should keep it too, but it doesn’t seem any different to me. You’ll just have to excuse the lack of scientific accuracy in our experiment.

I think some people keep their Irish cream in the fridge. Ours hasn’t moved from the top of our kitchen cupboard, but I think that’s fine – I’ve just seen on tesco.com that you need to store it at between 7 and 25 degrees Celsius; Manchester rarely gets warmer than that anyway.

I’m afraid I’ve neglected to compare the ingredients, but I remember reading recently that a lot of budget Irish creams are made without whisky, and that Ballycastle does contain whisky. Unfortunately that’s all I can say on that matter, so we’re just going to have to let it be.

 

In terms of alcohol content Bailey’s clocks in at 17% while Ballycastle only manages 14.5%.

This being our first blind taste test, no precedents had been set beforehand. I decided that first Brenda should see if she could determine which was which by looking at them. Then she would taste them and decide which she preferred, before guessing which was the Bailey’s.

She was able to tell, just by looking, which was which, and it was fairly obvious. The Bailey’s is noticeably thicker and more luxurious looking. I didn’t reveal the true identities at this point, but nevertheless Brenda decided she preferred the Ballycastle, though she rightly surmised that it was Ballycastle that she preferred.

I had a little taste, too and I think I prefer the Bailey’s. I’m not up to date on current prices, but I think an equivalent sized bottle of Ballycastle would save you around £7 on the Bailey’s. I can’t really say the Bailey’s is £7 better; just a bit better. So when you come to weigh up pros and cons, the Ballycastle is an acceptable alternative, in my opinion. Do I want to pay Bailey’s prices? No. Do I want a bottle of Irish cream to occasionally make cocktails with and perhaps drink over ice? Yes. So while Brenda prefers the Ballycastle, I don’t but would still buy it. As ever, it’s up to you.

The other thing I said I was going to do at the weekend was try my Bruichladdich Rocks as its creator intended it – over ice, early in the evening. So this is just a brief note to say that I did, and that it was very satisfactory but I still think it’s nice enough to drink neat,and I only have a small bottle, so I don't really want to waste it.

I didn’t get around to buying any spring water to add to my scotch, but I will another time.

Finally, I didn’t mention it before but it was my birthday at the weekend, and Brenda pulled out all the stops to make sure it was memorable. So big thanks to her. Included in her gifts was a book of ‘101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die’, which I’m sure I’ll be dipping into for research purposes fairly frequently and this:

This is the single malt, Jura Superstition (43%), one step up from the standard Jura, and it appears in the 101 Whiskies book, which was nice because it turns out Brenda bought the bottle a while ago unguided… or rather, guided by a hefty discount in Tesco. What was also fortuitous was that the book states it’s a good one, but all the other Jura’s aren’t. So she did well there. I think I’ve tried the standard Jura, and I don’t think I was overly impressed. I’ll let you know a bit more about this one as I make it further down the bottle. I now have 6 bottles of whisky on the go, and I’m thinking that may be too many… though I’m sure my official birthday bash in a couple of weeks will help sort that problem out…How many bottles is too many?

That’s it for now. Later in the week I’ll be posting a feature about booze tourism in Venice, and there may be one or two more posts too, so please come back soon and feel free to leave your comments and suggestions. In the meantime... enjoy yer booze.