Alco-Shops... Hotukdeals

The Alco-Shops feature is where I attempt to make you aware of interesting and useful places that you can use for buying booze, and with Christmas approaching, I thought I’d start a sequence of three posts that might help you out with your Christmas shopping, which officially started this week. So I want to introduce you to HotUKDeals, if you aren’t already aware of it, then next week (and the week after) I’ll move on to giving you some whisky buying advice, before moving on to some festive drinking activities. After that I’ll be in Canada indulging in some booze tourism while I visit the in-laws, but I will be back in January to start Drink It How You Like It’s third year of existence. How time flies when you’re drinking heavily…

Hotukdeals is basically a member site (though you don’t have to be a member) where people post all the bargains they’ve found online and in the shops. It covers nearly all genres of stuff, though some of the items make you wonder how people can be bothered to post about them at all (what?!). It could be something as inane as a Cadburys Crème Egg for 25p in Spar, or at the complete opposite end of the spectrum it could be a speedboat for £9000, reduced from £13500. This can be an invaluable resource when the time comes around for you to be thinking about what to buy people for Christmas. Sometimes you just don’t know what to get, do you? Well, just have a browse and you’ll be given bargain present ideas, and directed to various vouchers and sales.

More relevant to this blog though, is that you also get posts about cheap booze - one of the users actually provides a price comparison across a number of spirits in the main supermarkets, so that can be quite useful, especially if you’re stocking up for a party.

Occasionally you’ll see something you actually have to go and get. It niggles at you and forces you to go way out of your way, and the while time you’re on edge – what if they’ve run out by the time I get there?

I was recently forced to abscond from work for 45 minutes so that I could walk over to the nearest Asda where HotUKDeals had informed me they were selling bottles of Bruichladdich Rocks for £20 – an offer I couldn’t refuse. The normal price was quoted around £26, but I’ve seen it priced around £30 previously. The 20cl bottle my brother-in-law had given me the previous Christmas went down a treat, and I’d promised myself I’d buy a full size bottle the next time I got a chance. Well, here it was.

It did conflict with the other vow I’d made to myself about not buying another bottle until next month, but for some things you gots to make exceptions, and since it was a beautiful day, it made sense to sit out in the garden with it as soon as I got home.

Bruichladdich Rocks in the garden. Thanks. Hotukdeals!

 In general HotUKDeals is the sort of place that is worth checking every day if you get chance. Aside from being useful for providing present ideas, it’s saved me an unquantifiable amount of money in the years I’ve been visiting it. Equally it has probably inspired me to part with almost the same amount in buying things that I certainly wasn’t intending to buy before, but just seemed like too good a deal to miss ( I don’t know what I’m going to do with that speed boat…). It’s only money, isn’t it? You won’t even remember it next month.

That name again, it’s www.hotukdeals.com.

Being Daft: What is it with whisky reviews?!

In one of my earliest posts I asked the question: why is alcohol so fascinating? I didn’t really have an answer at the time, nor did I look for one. It was more of a rhetorical question that I used in order to ease my way into the new blog. Because alcohol is fascinating, though it is only a drink and there are lots of other types of drinks in the world that aren’t nearly so interesting. What makes alcohol so special, besides its capacity to alter mood, boost confidence and transform one into a witty raconteur?

Since I asked that eternal question, I’ve read a lot of comments and blogs about different drinks and it occurred to me that my palate is remarkably uncultured in comparison to most other people who write about strong liquor. They seem to be able to taste and smell all kinds of different things within a glass of whisky – a whole host of different flavours and scents in one glass, while I just know whether I like it or not – and sometimes it takes me a whole bottle to decide that. I can tell that all the different whiskies smell and taste distinct from one another, but I lack the ability to separate the flavour of any particular whisky into the constituent parts that experienced reviewers can.

That’s always been the main reason that I don’t write straight reviews of drinks – apart from the fact that reviewing something you drink seems pretty pointless to me. It’s like when you see reviews of things like airports on the internet. Airports! Who gives enough of a shit about airports to actually review them? 

I don’t particularly want to start taking careful note of everything I’m experiencing and I’d much rather focus on anecdotal stories and mindless ruminations about booze than provide a list of flavours.

I don’t even know if a list of flavours is useful to anyone, or whether it just satisfies a person’s need to classify things. It just seems to take a lot of the fun out of it for me, as well as seeming to suggest that you can’t really be enjoying what you’re drinking unless you’re able to describe the experience in minute detail, unless you have the right kind of glass, and you follow the correct routine.  I certainly don’t want to sit there deciding what I can taste in every glass I drink, but maybe as time goes on, that’s what will happen… Maybe I won’t have to decide – maybe it will become obvious…

the glass I used to drink whisky from

Incidentally, the best account I’ve found of why the glass you drink your whisky out of is important can be found here. Not so long ago, I replaced the standard whisky tumbler type thing I was using with a smallish wine glass… and I have to say that there was a definite improvement. I have now become quite picky about the glass when I order a whisky away from home. It makes ordering more complicated, but it also makes the drink more enjoyable – and if you’re paying bar prices, you want to make sure it’s worth it.

the glass I now like to use

The flavour of liquor can be very complex - so complex that enthusiasts separate the experience into stages; generally some combination of nose, palate and finish, and these can all be very different. I enjoy the experience and appreciate the differences, and that’s enough for me. Ian Buxton’s book, 101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die also classifies the colour – golden amber, mellow gold, molested apricot etc... Obviously whiskies all differ in colour from each other, but how the hell do you describe that colour? Is he working from a Dulux colour chart?  

I think the tendency to intellectualise though, is a natural human trait. Just liking something isn’t enough. You have to know why you like it, describe it, critically evaluate it, and then look down on people who don’t agree with you. You can see that in all spheres of human creativity; music, food, film, it even starts to proliferate further and further down the scale, elevating everything to the status of art. So, theatre devolves to film, film to TV, literature to comics, pictures of ladies in the nude to pictures of sexy ladies in the nude… doing dirty things… art seemingly to the simple act of doing something merely to provoke a reaction. We need to be able to say ‘this is great, but that is rubbish for these reasons’.

And so it went (probably) for alcoholic beverages like whisky. Way back in the beginning, I suppose whisky was made because people took pleasure in drinking it (getting drunk – though apparently it was first consumed as a medicine), but somewhere along the way a need developed to be able to compare and contrast, and then describe – and presumably to make better ones.  So you have people ascribing a list of flavours to whatever they drink. Sometimes they even agree with each other. The tasting has become more important than the getting drunk – which is actually a good thing; I can have a drink for enjoyment now, instead of for the buzz multiple drinks provide.

It does fascinate me though that those flavours that whisky experts are at pains to relate to us aren’t really there. They don’t put vanilla and cloves in whisky, but the flavours are there (apparently). Frankly, I should know. I’ve eaten cloves and cinnamon and a lot of those things that are used to describe the many flavours of whisky – and I don’t mean in food; I’ve eaten them whole, but I still don’t taste cloves in a glass of whisky. I wonder whether whisky reviewers have tasted them, or whether these terms are merely words that they have learned to apply practically. Or maybe my mind just can’t make the connection between a dry spice and an alcoholic beverage.

And how come a lot of these things are flavours that, in their actual state, are things I don’t like? Honey, butterscotch, citric zest…

One of the reviews I read (concerning Gibson’s Finest 12 Year Old Canadian whisky) reported the presence of crème brulee, oak, cedar, spicy pepper, cloves, citric zest, black fruits (?), strawberries and cream, fresh-cut wood, ginger ale, cinnamon, toffee, burnt sugar and molasses, while a review of Jura Superstition claimed to find mint and lightly smoked kippers.

Is this a competition to taste as many things as possible? Now I know for a fact that mint and lightly smoked kippers weren’t used in distilling. Lightly smoked kippers – not a slight taste of smoked kippers, but a taste of lightly smoked kippers! Is that even a good thing to be able to taste in whisky? “I’m a fan of the fishy malts…”

These aren’t flavours that you grew up liking, so you have to develop an appreciation. Perhaps, once your subconscious is hooked, and you’ve started to like the flavours, this complexity that some people represent as a combination of so many commonplace (and some not so commonplace) flavours is what is so interesting.

Back when I started this blog I said that people don’t get obsessed with trying all the different colas that are available. Well, perhaps some people do, but I’ve never read a review of a cola that tried to dissect its flavours. Have you? It’s just cola flavour.

Well apparently, it does happen occasionally.

Check the entry for Virgil’s Cola – “With notes of vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove, the cola smelled as good as it tasted”. Why is it always vanilla and cloves?!? If the flavour (and smell) of cloves is so desirable, why don’t we have a fizzy Cloveade drink? Why don’t we just make everything taste of cloves all the time, and we can all sit back and relax, revelling in the fact that everything tastes as good as it’s going to get, because it tastes of cloves? Who’d have thought cooking spices could make such tasty drinks? Forget your fizzy orange, make mine a fizzy cumin.

In order to put this practice of describing flavours and aromas to the test, I came up with a plan to make a list of a selection of the liquors I had available, and seek reviews of them. I made notes of the various flavours and scents they are supposed to impart, and the aim was to try each one with a copy of the notes on hand. As ever, I figured the method might develop as I went along, but my plan was to place a tick next to any taste or smell that I could detect from any of the reviews.

Unsurprisingly, this experiment was short-lived since the first time I sat down with my notebook and pen, I realised that this was the absolute antithesis of everything Drink it How You Like it stands for. It’s supposed to be fun, not meticulous! It’s supposed to be about enjoying alcohol, not classifying it. What am I turning intoooooo?!!

Did I detect any of these flavours? No, not really. Was I able to detect any single discernible flavour from whatever I was drinking? Again, sadly, no – unless you count whisky as one – does that count?  I could definitely taste whisky. Does that mean I am enjoying this whisky less than anyone else? I don’t think so. Maybe I can’t tell you exactly what you’re going to experience when you drink it, but why should you want that? You’re supposed to experience things for yourself, and take from them whatever you get.

Does it mean I’m not doing the tasting properly? Again, no – I’m not just knocking it back. I swirl it round the glass, stick my nose in there (I actually also like to breathe into the glass, through my nose to stir up the vapour before inhaling until my eyes water slightly – that way you get the taste in your nasal passages and your mouth at the same time), have a little think, take a sip, roll it around, enjoy it (I also like to suck a little air through the whisky on the front of my tongue), swallow, and enjoy it some more. Yes, I look like a twat when I drink whisky. It’s difficult to enjoy whisky with friends because you can’t talk when you’re tasting it. Someone asks you a question, and you have to mime, ‘hang on a minute, I just need to finish tasting this mouthful’, by which time whatever your answer is doesn’t seem relevant anymore. In general conversation with a person, have you ever thought of something that it would be possible to say, but you’re not sure whether to say it because a) it might not be funny or b) it might be misconstrued, and by the time you’ve finished deciding whether to say it or not, you realise that the moment in which you could have said it was very small, and has in fact expired already? You might wonder what would happen if you said it anyway, but you think about that too, and realise that for some reason it wouldn’t make any sense at all anymore. You might find this happening more frequently if you become a bit more considered in your whisky tasting.

You might say, ‘other people’s reviews give me an idea of whether I will like a whisky’. I don’t even think that’s the case. If someone says a whisky is good, I’m likely to give it a try, but you cannot deny that people’s tastes vary so much that what amounts to an unpleasant taste to one person is delicious to another – you see this anywhere that you find a number of reviews of one product from different people. And they say there are no right or wrong answers anyway…

So what’s the point? Is it just a vehicle for someone to feel more knowledgeable than someone else? Or is there actually anything useful about it? I can only tell you what I think, and at the moment I’m not bothered how many flavours people can taste in a whisky and what they are. I’m more interested in trying it for myself, and getting the visceral experience of enjoying a whisky immensely, enjoying every drop to its fullest extent. Reviews can act as a reference point to try and determine what your next purchase should be, and they can be interesting, but I tend to think that lists of flavours is overdoing it.

I guess ultimately, it’s not just a case of snobbery, or wanting to seem knowledgeable, or intellectualising something. Imagine if two people meet who both like whisky. Perhaps they want to talk about whisky. Well, if a language and culture develops around whisky, then they can. Conversation isn’t limited to, “I like this whisky, I don’t like this one.” They can actually go on to discuss the topic in depth, and we’ll assume, for the sake of argument, that this is worthwhile. Sharing experiences usually is worthwhile.

Irrespective of that, my point is when you find a new interest, it can seem like there’s a lot to take in, like there’s an exclusive club that no one wants you to be part of. But there isn’t. It just means there’s a lot to learn, and learning is a big part of the fun. Just don’t think you aren’t allowed to have your own opinions or to disagree. And don’t let it put you off.

I am starting to develop a more sensitive palate. I may have detected a scent of nuts in a glass of Highland Park 12 year old, and the other night I thought maybe I could smell pears in a glass of wine, so I guess it’s just practice – but there’s no pears in there! Or nuts! Let’s just hope I stop short of bombarding you with a list of random flavours.

classy bottle

Thanks for reading another rambling and ill-conceived treatise on the delights of strong alcohol. I might return to this theme once in a while just to humorously highlight the odd flavours people are finding in their booze – maybe I’ll even find some of my own.

Here’s a good one from Spirit Journal’s review of a favourite of mine, Bruichladdich Rocks:

Nose: fruitcake, banana nut bread, sweet malt. 7 minutes later, crispy pork rind, sweet oak, vanilla, red grapes and blackberry jam.

I love how specific some of those things are – crispy pork, and seven minutes later.

So moving forward, let’s not attempt to belittle or look down on this. Let’s celebrate it. Tell me what mad flavours you can find in your strong alcoholic drinks. And don’t make them up! I’m serious. Let’s see how creative and sensitive to flavour you are.

Bank Holiday Weekend

Hey! How was your bank holiday weekend? Mine was pretty good, and I feel like I’ve got a lot to tell you about so, while I don’t normally tell you that much about what I’ve gotten up to (perhaps because I don’t tend to get up to much), I’m going to indulge myself today. Don’t worry, it’s all booze related, and I’ll get back to more of the usual type of stuff next week.

Brenda’s been having a hard time of late. It all culminated last week when she had to complete an assignment for her degree, give an assessed group presentation, and oversee the (hopeful and eventual) revalidation of the educational courses that her employer provides. You can imagine it was a very stressful time for her, but she handled it very well. Having learned that ladies like simple but romantic gestures I bought her flowers (the first of three bunches she would receive last week – not from other men, mind!) and asked her out on a date for Friday night. On the recommendation of a drinking colleague from work I decided to take her to Southern Eleven in Manchester’s Spinningfields area.

Spinningfields is still a bit of a ghost town – lots of restaurants and bars, but no customers – but despite the property crash and ensuing (double) financial crisis it actually looks like it is starting to catch on (a little) – thanks in part perhaps, to Southern Eleven because that place was buzzing… in stark contrast to Giraffe and Zizzi, where a couple of embarrassed diners were wondering when The Restaurant Inspector was going to walk in.

Southern Eleven serves American style food (burgers, ribs, steaks, pulled pork and the like), but with a style and quality that is sadly lacking from every other UK-based-US-style bar/restaurant I’ve ever been in. What’s that you say? Food? Yes, I’m talking a little bit about food, but only to set the context for what’s coming next. Be patient. The food’s good enough that it deserves a mention, if not a more thorough description. Perhaps Clare will indulge us with a proper investigation at some point.

What I really came here to tell you about though, is the cocktails. I don’t normally drink cocktails when I go out, but it is a bit more fun when you’re on a date, and they don’t make me feel sluggish and tired like beer can. That’s a good thing, because it probably makes it less likely that Brenda and I will have a daft falling out.

I do make a lot of cocktails, and have been trying my hand at inventing some, but Southern Eleven’s cocktails were the best I’ve ever tasted, and I could only dream of inventing cocktails as complex but wonderfully balanced as these.

a fancy cup-holder contraption - mine's the one on the right

We started out by taking advantage of the special offer – two cocktails (from a small selection – between 4 and 6, I think) for £10.95, so that’s £2-3 cheaper than what I would call standard cocktail price in Manchester.

I’m afraid I can’t tell you exactly what was in those cocktails since I’m not (yet) that type of blogger who takes notes or photos of everything no matter what, or where it is, just to show one or two readers. Brenda said I should take a photo of the cocktail menu, but I said, “no, it’ll be online”. It isn’t. Here’s a photo though, of the weird contraption our cocktails came in – with a bowl of olives (bleugh) and strawberries (why?).

What I can tell you is that my cocktail was based on bourbon and combined cherry and chocolate flavours – there may have been some amaretto in there, too. It was perfectly balanced; I just loved it. I like bourbon, I like chocolate, put ‘em together, do a bit of magic – fantastic. Brenda’s was something fruity (I think it was called a Sidecar). It was awesome also, but I can’t remember anything specific about it. We basically had a sip of each other’s, and both agreed that they were excellent, but our own was the best, and that was all we wanted.

The food arrived quickly, and we weren’t there very long, but we did have time for another cocktail. I had a fancy variation on a Mint Julep, which was also excellent, and Brenda had a Hillbilly, which she amusingly called a Hilly-billy. Again, it was something fruity.

In all, both food and drink were very good, so I can recommend you give it a try. You can find a voucher (2 courses and a cocktail for £15) here. We didn’t order a starter, so we weren’t eligible for that particular discount. It’s not the greatest discount in the world, since you can only use one per party, but it’s better than nothing, and it’s good till September.

We had called in the Slug and Lettuce on Deansgate beforehand where it was 2 for 1 on cocktails (so that was good), but the quality was vastly inferior. Well, not that bad; just standard cocktails.

So Friday night was a success in regard to having a nice evening out. We had also called into Trailfinders to see about setting up a honeymoon fund. That was less successful, and raised more questions than it answered, as everything wedding-related seems to be doing at the moment. That little story isn’t booze-related though, so you’ll have to visit my arranging a wedding blog instead…

Saturday would involve a trip out to Whaley Bridge in Cheshire to attend John and Mandy’s party and watch the FA Cup Final. Sadly Liverpool didn’t win, but I drank a lot of beer and Brenda developed a taste for gin and tonic. John and Mandy seem very keen on that, so Brenda didn’t need to dip into the vodka I’d took along for her.

I’d faced a tough choice at Tesco earlier in the day where I was searching just for a vodka for mixing since (as far as I knew) Brenda would be finishing off my Russian Standard at the party later. There was a decent looking brandy on sale and Stolichnaya was only £14, but I had to resist since I’ve already spent a lot of money this month, the credit card debt is racking up, and it’s not like I’ve got nothing to drink at home.

I love Stolichnaya, but it isn’t a mixing vodka, so I decided to try Red Square. I’m not sure whether I’ve tried that one before, but it appears to be British… I’ve stuck it in the freezer for trying later in the week. 

This was the first time I’d had chance to actually use one of those ‘£3 off £20 spend’ vouchers that you get with your receipt when you shop at Tesco. I never seem to have one with me when I actually shop, but earlier in the week something had told me it might prove useful at the weekend if I kept it in my wallet. That brought the £11 vodka down to £8, so as long as it’s good enough for mixing, it’s a bargain.

Sunday was the day of Salford’s Sounds From the Other City Festival, that I mentioned last Friday. I’ve been to this event for at least the last 5 years, and on every one of them I’ve been hungover. It must be something about this particular weekend – this year was no different, and both Brenda and I showed up at the Islington Mill just after 3pm, not really wanting to be there, and not sure how long we’d be able to stick it out.

We met Paul and Victoria at a favourite starting point – The New Oxford – and the first pint (Bohemia Regent, was one of those that just goes right down your gullet – you know when you’ve got a proper thirst on, and you go for a beer? Just like that. It can go either way when you’re already hungover, but I drank my first pint in about 5 minutes. Fantastic; game on. 

The New Oxford sells all kinds of fancy Belgian (and other) beers, and they’re very enthusiastic about them. For the occasion all Belgian lagers were £3.60. That’s very good in this day and age. At Kro Piccadilly a couple of weeks ago, I’d paid £5 for a pint of Bohemia Regent and well, it’s nice, but it’s not that nice – what is?!

Once again, it was a fairly successful festival (for those of us who attended), though the number of attendees was clearly down on previous years – so potentially not so successful for the festival organisers. The pubs seemed to be doing a roaring trade though, and even with numbers down on previous years, they’d be selling a ton more pints than on a usual Sunday afternoon.

Inspired by how much fun we tended to have in Salford pubs at Sounds From the Other City, I had arranged to visit them all on a pub crawl one Saturday last year, only to find a very different atmosphere. Most of the pubs were shut, and the ones that were open had about three people in them – except the New Oxford, which was pleasant and friendly as usual.

The highlight of this year’s festival for me was Wode providing the soundtrack to a silent Japanese film that depicted scenes from a madhouse – you might call it Wode Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Sorry. 

Wode have been described (I think in the festival literature) as black metal, but I wouldn’t say they were as dark as that. I would fit it under the broader umbrella of thrash. Using my (admittedly limited) frame of reference, I heard shades of Sepultura, Alice in Chains, Helmet and Slint (if that’s any use to you). The film seemed very rhythmic to me, which fitted in well with what I consider to be a mostly rhythmic kind of music. Wode really were excellent, and we all emerged from the venue buzzing. Until then it had seemed like our £18 had been paid to listen to mostly amateurish screeching and self-indulgent posturing, but now we were ready to believe it had been worth it.

Speaking with Paul and Victoria earlier in the day, I learned they had attended a wine tasting so Paul and I were able to discuss the reservations we have about these kinds of things. It brought to mind for me, the idea of whisky tastings. Brenda’s been toying with the idea of taking me to one for a while (I’d certainly be very interested), but I am quite sceptical. It’s not just that these kinds of things are geared towards encouraging you to buy, when perhaps all you want to do is taste. If you’re a wine novice and you go to a wine tasting, the last thing you’re thinking about is buying a whole case of wine.

I don’t know if that would be the same at a whisky tasting – I suppose buying one bottle would be acceptable, and I might allow myself to do that if it was soon enough after pay day…

My main problem though, is that having a little taste of a whisky wouldn’t be that useful to me. It’s not enough; I do all the proper tasting methods and that, but I maintain that it takes around half a bottle before I actually start to appreciate a whisky – with the possible exception of the Ledaig 10 year old that Brenda took to Canada for her dad, and then brought back almost entirely full because it wasn’t to his taste. That one was right up my street, straight away.

No, in most cases it takes a great deal more. A case in point is the bottle of Highland Park 12 year old that I bought recently. I understand Highland Park is supposed to be thought of quite highly, and I decided to try a bottle of the ‘standard expression’ (as I’ve heard it called), when I saw it on special offer in Sainsburys.

in the bottle

close up, in the glass - nice

I found it severely underwhelming… at first. I’d just finished my bottle of 46% Bruichladdich Rocks, which was very full-bodied, and that I had been enjoying very much. In contrast, Highland Park seemed a great deal lighter, and I couldn’t see what the fuss was about. 

Well, I reached the magical half a bottle mark on Friday night when Brenda and I returned from our date, and for some reason the whisky just revealed itself – not in a creepy old-man-in-a-raincoat kind of way, more in a sexy-lady-slipping-out-of-her-dress-with-a-wiggle kind of way. It tingled and played on every part of my tongue that it came into contact with. It caused my saliva glands to dribble like Thames Water’s leaking pipes. Fantastic.

I don’t know why it always seems to be the case, but that is my experience. I’d read that it’s possible the whisky needs a certain amount of exposure to air to open itself up – since it’s sealed in the bottle for however long it is before you open it. Equally though, I’ve heard that over-exposure to air causes it to stagnate, and that over 2-3 months it will even do this in the bottle. Is it just a fine line between perfect aeration and stagnation?

In terms of my own observations, I don’t think it is a matter of allowing the whisky time to breathe a little since once I’ve already decided I like a certain whisky, the first taste of a new bottle always hits those highs that you remember having experienced before. I think it’s more of a matter of your taste buds becoming receptive to the new (and different) flavours that each individual whisky imparts. And usually, by about halfway down the bottle, I’m fully receptive.

And that’s why I’m sceptical about whisky tastings – as well as being another reason I’ll never be invited to sit on a judging panel.

It doesn’t represent my favourite kind of whisky – that remains the smoky Islay contingent – but Highland Park really revealed its class on Friday night, and has become one I’d be glad to share with a whisky-loving friend. I’m thinking this will be a good one to get in when Brenda’s dad visits for our wedding in August. He’s into the single malt, but not the strong flavours of Islay like I am. This will be a good one to keep on hand.

If you have any thoughts on the issues we’ve discussed today, feel free to get in touch in the comments, and once again, let me just encourage you to visit the various websites I’ve included links to today. It’s been an eclectic post for me, covering restaurants, cocktails, pubs, festivals and music. We’re not likely to see anything like that again for a good long time, so make the most of it. I’ll be back next week with something a bit more specific, and potentially less rambling. I developed a bit of a cold the other night, so this weekend might be the perfect opportunity to start the research into hot toddies that I’ve been planning for some time. I’ll let you know how that turns out at a later date.

Whatever you’re doing, have a good one and enjoy your drinks.

Booze Tourism Part 3 - Canada

Popular Canadian souvenirs - maple syrup, mountie stuff, smoked salmon.

Being Canadian but living in the UK, my fiancée Brenda has to alternate her Christmases - spending one with me and my family, and the next back in Canada with hers, so this year it was time to go back to Canada, and I had promised to go with her. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been to Canada, but it would be my first Canadian Christmas, and my first visit since becoming a booze tourist.

On my first visit I’d made sure to bring back a bottle of Wild Turkey, because I wanted to feel like Hunter S. Thompson (some say he drank Chivas Regal, but from reading his books, I remember a lot of Wild Turkey…), but as I said; I wasn’t a booze tourist then.

Canada is a good place to be a booze tourist. They have lots of different varieties of beer, and they are well situated geographically to take advantage of imports of bourbon and Tennessee whiskies from the USA as well as tequila from Mexico and rum from the Caribbean. I like all of those varieties of liquor, but they wouldn’t be on my shopping list this time. I had already decided that I’d be sourcing some Canadian whisky, and I made sure I was fully prepared with some pre-trip internet research.

I’d just like to namecheck a couple of websites here that I found useful. The first is http://www.canadianwhisky.org/. It focuses exclusively on Canadian Whisky and is filled with in depth reviews utilising a simple 5 star scoring system. The second is http://therumhowlerblog.wordpress.com/. This site contains tons of reviews of different kinds of gin, rum, vodka, tequila and of course whisky, as well as having a list of cocktails, and serving suggestions for each spirit reviewed. I have no idea how this guy has had enough time to try all these drinks, but it’s quite a collection, and I can only assume he doesn’t have a wife telling him that he drinks too much. He has a much more complicated rating system than canadianwhisky.org, but it certainly proved very useful for me.

Both these sites are valuable resources if you’re researching purchases for your next trip to Canada, and you’ll probably find the information on them far more useful than anything you’ll find on my blog, so go and check them out once you’ve finished reading this post.

I had tried some Canadian whiskies before, including Highwood and a couple of varieties of Canadian Club (thanks, Brenda!), but this time I was determined to be a bit more choosey. Visiting a liquor store was pretty much the only thing on my to do list for the trip, and I actually visited three or four before we left Calgary. They tended to stock (pretty much) the same stuff, so it was just a matter of finding the most competitive prices.

So where should you be focusing your attention when making purchases during a booze tourism adventure? Set your own rules here (because remember; there are no rules), but I like to look for something local, authentic/traditional, and something I can’t get at home.

I did quite well with my purchases on all those scores, though neither of my choices were local to Alberta (which is where Brenda’s family lives, and where my booze shopping took place) they are specifically Canadian.

Crown Royal is one of the most popular Canadian whiskies, so I decided to go for the Crown Royal Black, with is 5% stronger and a few dollars more expensive (but significantly cheaper than at www.thewhiskyexchange.com) . It is darker in colour than the standard, and the flavour is similar, but a little richer – I know because the future mother-in-law bought me a bottle of the standard Crown Royal for Christmas. That’s a nice whisky too, and probably the pick of all the bottles I have available at the time of writing. Crown Royal also comes in a nifty cloth bag, that I suppose serves to protect your liquor from sunlight if you haven’t got a cupboard to keep it in.

I’d decided to buy a second bottle to bring home with me, and for that one I went with Gibson’s Finest 12 Year Old. Again, this is the next step up from the normal Gibson’s, and it’s only available in Canada – I read that they can’t produce enough of it to export for some reason – maybe the Canadians drink a lot of it. This one has a very mild flavour compared to the Crown Royal. It’s sweet and pleasant, but not full-flavoured enough to dilute with ice.

The Crown Royal comes in a weird crown-shaped bottle, while the Gibson’s comes in a portly one, not dissimilar to the Bailey’s Irish Cream bottle in shape, though it is transparent so you can see how much is left – unlike Bailey’s where you’re always asking, “have I got enough left to make this cocktail?”  

There is one drawback with the Gibson’s – it has a screwcap with such a smooth action that it is almost impossible to resist spinning it off at high velocity. This almost always results in a series of fumbled catches leading to a frenzied chase around the kitchen floor – and if you’re extremely unlucky a foray into the furry depths beneath the fridge, or even having to pull the fridge out. Be warned; go easy on that cap.

Now, you’re only allowed to bring one 1.14l bottle of hard liquor back from Canada – that’s a good deal larger than a standard bottle, but not as big as two bottles, so if you do want to stick to your limits and you want to bring more than one variety home with you, you’re going to need a friend. I bought 75cl bottles. Brenda kindly offered to carry one for me. That still left me with two, but I was able to polish off the Crown Royal Black by New Year’s Day, thanks to a late night cigar/whisky-share deal I was able to arrange with someone we met at the Toronto wedding we’d been invited to on New Year’s Eve – though he was calling it ‘scotch’ for some reason. It seemed inappropriate to correct him.

 I’d opened it a week or so before so that Brenda’s brother Brian could try it (he was familiar with the standard Crown Royal, but likes to mix it with coke – still, it’s nice to share… and have an excuse to open a new bottle) and then I was able to dip into it from time to time in the evenings.

So given that the remaining bottles were 75cl that left us a little under the limit, even with the little Bruichladdich Rocks bottle (20cl) that Brian gave me. So it was a most successful trip. Not that anyone ever checks at Customs, but maybe they will one day.

I finished the Bruichladdich Rocks a couple of months after returning home, having been hanging on to the last drop for a while. I didn’t want to fritter it away willy-nilly because, even though it’s a blend of young single malts (6-8 years old), it had a complex flavour, and was one of the most interesting whiskies I’ve tried so far. It did tend to cause a slight burn on my tongue though, which is something I don’t notice very often, and is supposed to be the reason that real whisky experts add a drop or two of water. I still haven’t tried that, but I have heard that you can tell how aged a whisky is by where on your tongue it burns – young ones at the front, older further to the back.

I tried the standard Bruichladdich 10 year old recently on a recent visit to the Lake District and, while it was nice, I actually prefer the Rocks so far. It can take a few more drinks to really know what to think about a whisky though, and I only had one double. I think I’ll be investing in a full bottle the next time I’m in the market for a single malt - it’s among the contenders, anyway.

Canadian whisky is in nature very different to scotch. In my layman’s terms I’d say it tends to be sweeter and less complex but still enjoyable and worth getting your hands on.

I had been tempted to pick up some ice wine before returning home, but it’s fairly expensive, and my budget was worryingly stretched by that point, so I didn’t even pick up anything else in Duty Free. We get paid early in December, and my November wages was all gone on gifts, so December’s had to last 6 weeks. I don’t usually have to fit a two week holiday (and the necessary booze tourism that comes with it) into that equation, so I had to forego the ice wine.

Ice wine is made by leaving the grapes on the vine until sometime after the first frost, so that they freeze. Then they are pressed, making a sweet, syrupy wine that is very pleasant for sipping. The bottles are only half the size of normal wine bottles, but I recommend you give it a try - they were doing a nice German one in Aldi at a reasonable price a while ago, so there’s no excuse for not seeking one out - unless you’re ashamed to be seen in Aldi.

In Canada they have a huge fondness for beer. I’ve found that people will offer you a beer the moment you arrive at their house – even if it’s 10 in the morning. It seems that the general rule is: if beer is available, then it is acceptable to drink it. Most times 10am is even a little early for me, but it certainly is encouraging – especially when it’s your future mother-in-law. She stocked up on some cans for our stay – some Coors Lite (which isn’t light in alcohol compared to most British lager) and a selection of beers from the local Big Rock brewery, which we’d actually toured during our last visit. That had been the first time I’d ever visited a brewery, and I have to say: I don’t find information about how beer is made very interesting. Just get me to the tasting part, and the part where you can choose any six varieties to take home.

In general your Canadian beer is like a cross between lager and ale, so it’s perfectly drinkable and comes in a staggering number of varieties. It was nice to have my own private stash that I was expected to polish off during my stay – and the quantity was sufficient, so there wasn’t any awkwardness about drinking too much - which is ideal, because I wasn’t drinking too much. Good.

Frankly, to give a full impression of the drinking culture in Canada, I’d probably have to write a PhD, so that ain’t happening. I can tell you we had a pretty terrific time – without going into too many details about what we did (stick to the booze, stick to the booze) and I hope I’ve given you at least a little useful information should you be planning a trip there. Be sure to check out those websites if you do. I’m sure they’ll help you make the most of your Canadian booze tourism experience.

I’ll see you next time for some more general ruminations on booze and booze related products.

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.