Cask Strength Roundup

Looking at my blog stats gives the impression that a fair few people aren’t sure what to do with cask strength spirits. Since my original, well-visited foray into that world I’ve made it my business to investigate cask strength expressions wherever possible, so I thought now would be a good time to revisit the subject, look at some examples and draw some conclusions. Onward…

Caol Ila 61.3%

This of course was the original cask expression that I got so excited about. I was quite precise about ratios whenever I drank this one, figuring I didn’t want to waste one drop of enjoyment. Enjoy it I did, but not as much as the standard 12 year old which has its optimum strength already worked out for you.

To be fair, the cask strength isn’t just the 12 year old with less water in it – judging by its even paler hue and lighter, less luxurious body, it is also a good deal younger. That is only idle speculation on my part (feel free to correct me if you know better), though if it is fairly young spirit, it does quite well.

Berry Bros and Rudd Bunnahanhain 1979 51.8%

This has probably been the best cask strength expression so far. Dark of colour, fruity and tart of flavour, it never seemed to overstep the mark when it came to the line between strength and flavour. I only have one small taste of a non-cask strength Bunnahabhain to compare it with, but I don’t think we need to go down that route. This was superb – perhaps its 32 years in a cask helped it to mellow somewhat. You can read more of my impressions of this one here.

Glen Garioch Founders Reserve  48%

48% is quite low to be cask strength, and I would also have thought quite low for such a young cask strength expression. Come to that, 48% is just a weird strength. Nevertheless, this was an average to below average expression, and as such it isn’t something to judge cask strength expressions by. You can read more of my impressions of this one here.

Bladnoch 12 - Sheep Label 55%

In spite of, or possibly because of high expectations, this one never quite achieved the greatness that the 46% 10 year old did. The line between too much and too little water was a little too fine. I took it to a cottage-share with some friends in Gloucestershire and while it was good for demonstrating how addition of water is essential for cask strength whiskies, it was not the excellent example of scotch that I was hoping it was going to be. You'll be able to read more of my impressions of this one in the coming months.

Aberlour A’bunadh 60.7%

A good example – and beautifully presented, but it cemented to an extent my general indifference to Speyside malts. One that would certainly be drinkable at full strength, but for optimum enjoyment a good deal of water was required. In the end, this one just didn’t demand I pull it out of the cupboard often enough. You can read more about this one in the coming months.

Four Roses Single Barrel 50%

Sadly I could never quite get the the flavour to burn ratio correct with this one when adding water – you could reduce the burn, but if you added enough water to take care of the burn properly, the flavour was ruined, and it always made me want to keep adding water until that inevitably happened. I’m no expert on bourbon as yet, but given the big flavours that are out there for reasonable prices, I’d suggest you’d be better going for one of those than you would this. Again, check back over the coming months to read more about this one.

Arran 1997 Single Cask 56.3%

I haven’t quite finished this one yet, but it has been setting a good example so far. A few small drops of water are usually enough. Perhaps not quite as impressive as the Bunnahabain, but gentle and sweet in equal measure. It is also better presented than even the Aberlour A’bunadh – though admittedly about twice the cost. You can read more about this one sometime in the future.

Concluding Remarks

I do like the extra strength, but in general I’d probably rather do without the chaos element that having to add your own water brings. You’re never quite sure you’re getting the most out of it and that blurs the line between the effect your dilution is having on it and the possibility that maybe sometimes the product may not be as good as some others.

You should probably even get cask strength editions at a cheaper rate than others because the distillery hasn’t bothered taking the time to figure out what the right level of dilution is. I suppose you are getting more of the overall product, but every time you pour a glass you have to have one or two tastes before you’re certain you’ve added about the right amount of water – then there’s always that point where you know you’re close, but wonder if you should add a little more, while also being aware that you might end up adding a drop too much and ruining it.

It’s probably only me who worries to this extent, though harking back to that original post, I have seen from looking at my blog stats that a lot of the people who are directed to my first ever post about cask strength scotch, have asked Dr Google, how to drink cask strength scotch, so there’s clearly a lot of uncertainty. They don’t want to waste it by doing it incorrectly either.

All in all, cask strength whisky just seems a bit too much hard work sometimes. So what I find is that a lot of the time I just elect to keep the cask strength stuff in the cupboard. And anyway, shouldn’t I be able to trust the distillery to add the optimum amount of water? And come to that, isn’t it the case that the water they add at the distillery is going to be from the same source as what made the whisky in the first place and therefore better able to complement the spirit than the cheapest bottled water I can buy in a local supermarket? Or does that depend whether the water is added at a bottling plant, potentially far away from the source?

So I suppose, as with all whisky, the cask strength variety is another genre to be explored – there’s going to be good and… less good in it as you would expect with anything. It’s just that there’s something exciting about those extra ABVs, and that may or may not be a good thing – depending on the particular variety you’ve gone for.

Try some out and let me know your thoughts.

Pub Crawling in Stockport

Seven miles east of popular party destination Manchester lies the altogether different town of Stockport. Built on a couple of hills, next to a big blue pyramid, Stockport is like a traditional English market town that suffers perhaps because the MCR’s sprawling metropolis is so close at hand and so accessible – lots of buses and trains each hour that bring the clubs, venues, restaurants and bars (and indeed, the 21^st century) easily within reach.

What does that leave you with for a night out in Stockport? It’s time to find out. In fact, it’s time to find out anew since I’ve already done a Stockport pub crawl. A good few years ago my friend moved there, and we decided to try it out – it’s only 3 miles up the road from my house. It was something of a failure by all accounts. We were pretty much the only people who had chosen to go out in Stockport on that particular Saturday night – with the singular exception of the scary man who hit us up for 2 quid in the second pub we called in. He had tears tattooed on his face, and none of us felt we were on familiar enough terms to ask any questions as to whether they represented the number of people he’d killed, years he’d spent in prison or times he’d been raped... Everyone pretended not to be scared while Phil gave him 2 quid.

With the atmosphere of that pub ruined, we left pretty sharpish and ended up between pubs in a pissing rain storm. At this point paranoia was setting in, and we were expecting to run into a gang of Nazis at any moment.

Surely it couldn’t be as bad as that again?

Before setting out this time, something on Twitter suggested I should download a beer app (Untappd), so I thought I could try it out during our excursion. I decided to try the find good beer nearby function first, entered my post code, and waited for it to suggest that the nearest good beer was… in town, 3 miles away at the Port Street Beer House. FFS. There has to be some good beer nearer than that! Ok, so maybe it’s one to try sometime later.

After a couple of warm up drinks, Mrs Cake and I set out to The Magnet on Wellington Road. We’d never been there before, and I’d never even considered it – it’s location isn’t the most inviting (outside of town, round the corner from a retail park)… but it is surprisingly good. It’s nicely decked out, plush, friendly and with a good selection of beer. They also sell pouches and cartons that you can have filled with beer to take home with you. Pretty frickin’ awesome. In fact, Mrs Cake suggested this could be the place we come to when we fancy popping out for “a quick pint”. Our usual haunt, The Fiddler’s Green is friendly enough (and easily within walking distance), but the selection of drinks is blackly depressing. On our last visit I spotted a new bottle in the fridge and asked what it was, only to be told by the barmaid: “No idea. I couldn’t  tell you”. So… do you want to have a look at the bottle, or what? I’m sure it’ll tell you on there… if you’ll just look. Nope.

The Magnet has all tons of real ales and fancy foreign beers, and for the sake of 5 minutes on a bus, totally worth it.

 

Beer list at The Magnet

I tried Bitburger Premium Pils, since I tend to opt for those type of beers these days, but I was disappointed with a bitter aftertaste, scoring it 3 out of 5, which I can’t help with the benefit of hindsight, thinking should have been a 2 or 2.5.

Next we headed back a little further from Stockport to The Railway, where a teddy boy night was in full swing. The atmosphere was a bit weird in there, but no cause for concern. In the main room everyone was dressed for the 50s, while the other room was where everyone else went. It’s one of those pubs that’s nice enough, but the décor and sparse furnishings give it a shabby working men’s club feel.

This time I went for “Warrior” (4.6%) by Goldmark Craft Beers, which confounded my new beer app. Honestly, only my second beer and I’ve already found a new one. No need to worry though, there is a feature that allows you to enter your discovery on to the app. I unlocked the “Night Out” achievement for that one, though it was actually for being on a night out rather than discovering a new beer. You’ll see I came to earn four achievements on this first excursion.

Next up was The Swan With Two Necks, which is down in Stockport town. This was a weird one an’all… it was nearly empty and they were playing cheesy 80s pop music really loud, and I’m talking Kylie’s I Should Be So Lucky and even Stefan Dennis. We didn’t know what to make of that. Also, the gents toilet is outside so, you know, while I made that quip about the 21^st century earlier, I’m not actually trying to imply that Stockport is backward but… it’s not like there aren’t er… things that hark back to a simpler time… 80s music and outside toilets? Not of the same era, but even so.

I chose the 8.5% Old Tom, which I actually enjoyed very much. Dark of flavour, it reminded me very much of the 32 year old Bunnahabain I’d been drinking around that time. Soon after I read a blog about pairing beer with whisky, and I can’t help thinking that these two would probably complement each other perfectly. 4 out of 5 for this one.

So, onward to The Arden Arms, another bizarre experiment in publicanism – on the surface. No, outside it looks like a pub, but inside it’s like a betting shop from the 19^th century. You order your pint from like, a window – or rather a counter, more than a bar. Here I think I had Hoptimus Prime, which I also scored a 3.

We finished up this time at The Boar’s Head, which is by the market place and is a Samuel Smith pub. It’s very cheap, which is nice, and they have their own branded spirits – another aspect I enjoy. I decided to have a chaser this time, so it was Sovereign Best Bitter (4.1%, 3.5 out of 5), with the irish whisky.

We went home after that, picking up some fried chicken on the way. It was a far more successful pub crawl than my last attempt then, and definitely one I’d repeat/recommend.

The next day I was perusing our tv recordings library, and wondering why the new episode of How I Met Your Mother hadn’t recorded. Later, while catching up on my tweets from the previous night, I found one that said, “watching How I Met Your Mother; why is Marshall so thin?” So clearly the reason it wasn’t in the library was that we’d been watching it drunk. Ought not to’ve deleted it really.

So, I’ll just finish off with a few words about that beer app. It’s a shame really that I’ve explored so much beer already, as this means I pretty much have to start again. The flip side of that is that I am newly encouraged to try different beers, where recently I had been content to stick with beer that I know I like. The app encourages you by giving you achievement badges – I got four just from that night alone, and we only went in 5 pubs – talk about enabling. A week or so later I got a badge for drinking 10 different beers in a row. What the app doesn’t realise of course, is that I wasn’t logging a beer if I’d already had it, there didn’t seem to be any point in logging multiple cans of my staple Holsten Pils, and especially not the 18 cans of Carling my dad had brought over – nor even the second pint of Jever… if you have to start logging everything you do, where does it stop?

I haven’t tried it out fully yet, having only one friend on there, and having chosen not to allow it to speak to the internet through Facebook or Twitter because I don’t want people being told about what I’m doing or where I am until I’m ready to tell them. Nevertheless, I’ve noticed one drawback to its functionality, and that is that it doesn’t appear to log where you drank the beers you check in, even when you add your location. I could be missing where it does that, but I had to resort to the internet to find the name of the Samuel Smith pub, when I should have just been able to check my beer log on my app.

It does seem that the app gets in the way a little since you pretty much have to take your phone out and log your beer as soon as you get back to your table – otherwise you might forget what you’re drinking. I know Mrs Cake finds that very annoying when she’s trying to have a conversation. It’s like when people first got mobile phones and you’d be in a pub, playing pool with someone when they get a text. Then they stop playing and answer the text (which used to take so much longer), leaving you standing there waiting. Luckily people eventually got used to ignoring their texts until opportune times. Some did anyway.

It was a most successful excursion, then. Sure, some of it is down to the company you keep, but it helps if you can find interesting and friendly pubs, which we did.

Spirits of the Year 2014

It’s a brand new year on the Drink it How You Like it blog, so happy new year. This year actually marks the beginning of the fourth year that I have been doing this blog – more or less regularly, without any drop in quality whatsoever. That’s pretty amazing. So anyway, I thought I’d end 2014 with a tradition that I began only last year – the annual Spirits of the Year post. It’s nice to look back at what I’ve been drinking and try to decide which ones merit a little celebration, so let’s get right into it and see what 2014 had to offer. As ever, this isn’t in any particular order and there’s no single winner – these are all considered outstanding examples of last year’s drinking. I’ll be contacting the various producers in due course to congratulate them on achieving this presitigious status, but for now…

Single Malt Scotch: Berry Bros & Rudd, Bunnahabhain 1979

A fairly expensive one,  but I didn’t pay for it, so I have no qualms about including it here. In fact, I’d say it was impressive in spite of its price tag.

Read a whole lot more about it here.

Aguardiente de Orujo: Regio

An absolute bargain at less that 7 euros, and a surprisingly good pomace brandy – even though it did take a little while to appreciate fully. I have taken the price into account on this one. Is it the best pomace brandy I’ve ever tasted? No. Did I enjoy it heartily? Oh yes. And that’s why it is a spirit of the year. You’ll be able to read a lot more about this a some point during 2015.

Bourbon: Woodford Reserve Double Oaked

An absolute taste sensation, this one. I only bought it because I was disappointed in the various options available in Orlando Airport’s Duty Free, but it far surpassed expectations and even hopes. Again, you’ll be able to read a lot more about it on these pages in 2015 but let me just say; it was a bad decision to take this to a poker night. It went down a storm with the other players, and I was left with only half a bottle to snuggle up with. Highly recommended. In fact, if there was going to be an overall best spirit of 2014 (which there isn’t), this would probably be it (but it’s not. Cos there isn’t one.)

So let’s just finish with a brief look ahead into 2015… sure, a good proportion of my posts are already planned and partially written, but there are always further adventures to be had – unopened bottles in the cupboard, unpurchased bottles in the store and, for the first time in a long time, trips that Mrs Cake and I haven’t planned yet. I’m hoping for Japan and Italy, but we’ll have to see about that. Whatever happens, there’s going to be a whole heap of drinking on these pages. Join me frequently.

A 32 year old Bunnahabhain: How frickin’ nice is this?!?

Woah, this one has snuck up on me a bit. I’ve had the post planned for a while, but when I came to checking it over before posting, I found it was only half done! Just a bunch of random sentances, no narrative, very little detail… time to cobble something together.

I’m going to assume you can imagine my excitement at coming into possession of this one (full story here), given that it was distilled in 1979. Not only is that an absurdly long time ago, it is the year after I was born which… frankly goes only to reiterate what an absurdly long time ago it was. Everything in my life, except for the nine womb months and a lot of pooing and crying happened in between this Islay malt being distilled (by Bunnahabhain), aged (by Berry Bros and Rudd), bottled 32 years later (also by Berry Bros and Rudd), purchased (by my father-in-law), wrapped up (presumably by my father-in-law’s wife) and then given to me as a Christmas present in December 2013. I then freed this liquid from the bottle and released it back into the great cycle of life between March and June 2014. It has taken me since then to get around to telling you about it. It’s a good job you haven’t been holding your breath.

I think that’s a worthy enough introduction, don’t you?

Yes, the excitement you can imagine – I was starting to think I’d never get to own a bottle this old – actually, that should be spirit, shouldn’t it? The bottle would only be 2 years old or so, it is the whisky that’s aged 32 years  – though it had existed in its bottled form for 34 years by the time it came into my possession. I might be over doing this now… Anyway, sure; you can always try ridiculously old whiskies at tastings and festivals, but this one would be more or less all mine.

I opened it when friends came round to announce their engagement. There may also have been a cigar involved. So anyway, let’s have a look.

very dark

There was no box accompanying this one, just a reassuringly standard bottle and an intriguing label. It is bottled from a single cask at a hearty 51.8%, and is surprisingly dark in colour – almost like a Spanish brandy or dark rum. No information has been provided as to what kind of cask this was aged in so I can only speculate, but I’m not going to beyond some kind of… sherry… cask.

Bunnahabhain is of course, an Islay distillery, but is known for producing a more mildly peated spirit than most of its neighbours.

As you’d expect, we tried it straight and yeah, it’s strong both in alcohol burn and in flavour. In fact, it tastes a little burnt in its raw state but it opens up and sweetens nicely with the addition of water. It’s certainly fruity and I’m tempted to describe dried fruit on the nose, but that doesn’t seem sufficient.

If you hold it, neat, for a really long time there’s a fleeting impression of dark, dark chocolate but, i should you add more than a few drops of water, to the point where you think you might have added too much, there’s apple pie and cinnamon. I found this interesting, but my personal preference is to keep the dilution at just a few drops and preserve that bite that lets you know you’re drinking the strong stuff, while easily masking the flavour of spring water.

Now, Jim Murray had suggested Bunnahabhain doesn’t handle extreme aging so well and that might have put me off buying something like this for myself (as might the price tag, despite being fairly bargainous for this age of spirit), but on the strength of this evidence, I disagree with him. It does remain to be seen what a distillery bottling of comparable age would be like, though they retail for double or even more than I know (or strongly suspect) this bottling to have cost (which was about £90 – again, check my earlier post for more details).

I can only conclude that this is a terrific malt that that throws up all kinds of questions. How come it came to be aged for 32 years? Where was it aged? How was it aged?... How frickin’ nice is this?!?

That’s the important one: how fricking nice. There’s been a lot of spirit drinking over the course of this year, and when I look back, as I will do in a couple of weeks for my Spirits of the Year post, I’m certain I’ll be looking back on this one with fondness as one of the cream of the crop. I suppose this means it’s getting on for time I bought a Bunnahabhain distillery bottling for myself. I’m sure that day is growing ever closer.

Thanks for joining me once again. You know I’ll be back next week with some more booze adventures. It can’t’ve escaped your notice that the booziest time of the year is approaching and, while I have no plans to post anything specific about Christmas (or New Year) over the period you can rest assured I’ll be diving headlong into all the extra research that I get to take part in. Have a great week, and I’ll see you later.

Another Christmas in the Canada Part 2: You're Coming With Me

Is this picture too big?

One thing EU travellers have to contend with when traveling to North America, that isn’t a problem when staying within the boundaries of the EU, is that of limits to what you can bring home. When returning from the US or Canada, it’s a measly one litre – per person. So much to try, so little time. I suppose it’s lucky I did marry a Canadian, since it means I’ll be able to visit Canada fairly frequently – I could have married someone from China, where they make baiju… that I’ve tried about enough of, thank you very much.

Yes, deciding what to bring home is one of the most exciting parts of the booze tourism experience. I had done my research as usual, and had become overwhelmed with all the choices, so instead of researching the fuck out of it, I stopped when I had a modest shortlist to choose from, and kept it on my phone.

My original intention was one Canadian whisky and one bourbon, but a couple of visits to liquor stores suggested choice among bourbons was not that extensive. Then I realised we were planning a trip to Florida in 2014, so why not wait until then? Two Canadian whiskies then, I said. Not that I’m expecting there to be liquor stores in Disneyland (that could be an interesting post…), but there’s always the Duty Free.

I ended up making one of my purchases on the second day, returning to the Liquor Depot in Woodbine to pick up the Lot 40 that the shop assistant had been so keen on. It had actually been on my list all along, so I just decided to plump for it. Any plans to hold out for the Masterson’s 10 evaporated, and I ultimately didn’t see that in any of the many liquor stores we ended up visiting anyway.

Lot 40 is bottled at a cockle-warming 43%, which makes a nice change from most of the Canadian whiskies I saw, and I ended up paying in excess of 50 Canadian dollars (around £30). I later learned that this was 10 dollars too much, but whatever, the damage had been done by then.

Lot 40 has garnered a lot of interest and praise around the internet, so I’m looking forward to being able to add my voice to the deafening tumult in the coming months.

At this point I realised there was a very real possibility that someone might buy me a bottle of whisky for Christmas, meaning I was going to have to hold off on any further purchases. I waited, sipping the Alberta Springs 10 and Canadian ’83, expecting that, should anyone buy me a bottle, it would be a Crown Royal – which I didn’t mind, though I would prefer to be able to try something else. Nevertheless, just wait and see.

Waiting, waiting – during which time it transpired we would be taking the Highland Park 12 that we had bought for Mrs Cake’s dad back with us – you see, one of the bottles he wanted me to finish was a Highland Park 12 with just about three fingers left. I remarked that he gave the bottle a good go, despite not being fond of it, but he said the guy who brought it actually drank all that. Would the extra bottle cause problems on re-entry to the UK? We had bought it in the UK, and therefore already paid tax and duty so… hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

Highwood Centennial, "Limited Edition"

Christmas Day arrived, and this was my whisky gift. It’s a limited edition known as Centennial from Highwood Distillers. I haven’t been able to find out any information in terms of what’s ‘limited’ about it, but it’s 40% ABV, and I’m going to assume it is aged for 10 years, since there is a 10 year old expression that looks identical. It is presented in an elegant grappa-style bottle with an extra long neck, which means it doesn’t fit in my special cupboard. Good pick though, Mrs Cake’s mum, good pick indeed. This is one that I might well have picked out for myself... though it hadn’t made it on to my list.

Highwood are based in the small town of High River, Alberta and they make other spirits such as vodka and rum as well as whisky. I had e-mailed them to enquire about taking a tour in advance of our holiday, but they responded in no uncertain terms that they wouldn’t be doing any tours for the time-being due to the damaging floods that devastated the area in the summer. Fair play, though I’m sorry to say the tone of the e-mail didn’t make me too keen to attempt a visit on any future occasion either.

Holy shit. Right?

So, you’d think that would be it, wouldn’t you? One whisky for me to take home, one for Mrs Cake to take on my behalf, and then one to take back with us that had been a failed gift attempt… but, no. Christmas with Mrs Cake’s father (and wife) arrived a few days later and what’s this? Another bottle of whisky. Not Canadian this time though. This is a 2011 Berry Bros and Rudd bottling of a 1979 Bunnahabhain (51.4% ABV) – exclusive to Calgary’s Willow Park liquor store, or apparently not since I found something remarkably similar (though out of stock) on Master of Malt.

This is 32 years old! It made me feel a bit awkward, to be honest. What’s Mrs Cake’s dad doing buying me a 32 year old single malt? My initial estimate was that this could have cost up to £200, which is just far too much to be spending on a Christmas gift for your son-in-law – not to mention the book and glencairn glasses that were packaged with it. The Master of Malt listing had it at £150 (which is still far too much), but we couldn’t resist stopping at Willow Park a few days later to see if they still had it. They did, and it was somewhere around 150 Canadian dollars – which was more like £90. Frankly, that’s still too much. The only thing that would make me feel better would be if this was a re-gift. It’s rude to ask, but I’m just going to assume it’s a re-gift so that I can enjoy it to the full. I never thought I’d own a 30 year old malt, but here it is. One source (Jim Murray, I think) suggests that Bunnahabhain doesn’t carry extended aging so well but, as ever, I will be the judge of that. Thanks John.

Well that would have to be it for our check-in luggage. Hopefully that wouldn’t be too much for the customs, and if it was, I’d be prepared to pay the duty – as long as they didn’t take my precious booze away.

Being the obsessive booze-hound that I am, I was tempted not to finish even there. You see, our flights were via Frankfurt, and on our outward journey I had seen the Duty Free shops had two of Highland Park’s exclusive to international travel expressions. I’ve been dying to try them, and I happen to have a 0% credit card at the moment so I figured I’d pick one up on the way home. Since Frankfurt is in Europe, it seemed logical that I should be able to take as much booze as I wanted from there back to the UK – right?

When we arrived at Frankfurt Mrs Cake was feeling unwell, and I was tired and starting to feel the guilt – you know, when suddenly you think actually I don’t think I can justify spending another £50 on booze for myself.

I deliberated and writhed in turmoil for a couple of hours while Mrs Cake slept. When she awoke and requested ginger ale (Canadian cure-all medicine) and mints, I toddled off to a couple of shops looking for them then, having been successful, decided I’d reward myself not with the Highland Park, but with some cigars.

The point of all this is that they wouldn’t let me buy any tax free goods. I was in too much of a hurry and too tired to ask why, but it was probably because Frankfurt was only a stop on the journey, so I wouldn’t have been able to buy the Highland Park anyway… and they probably wouldn’t have let me buy the Wild Turkey that time in Dubai Airport. Oh well.

Hours later we arrived home, and I needed to unpack my booze as soon as possible – both to make sure it had all survived intact, and to stand the bottles the right way up so that the alcohol wouldn’t damage the cork stoppers (where appropriate), which in turn wouldn’t damage the precious liquid.

It had been around 48 hours since we’d wrapped each bottle in bubble-wrap, then in clothes, then vacuum packed them and I’d been trying not to think about them since.

At home, my combination padlock was stuck fast and I couldn’t release it. It took a combination of hacksaw, hammer, screwdriver and snips to do enough damage to finally convince it to give way, and every bottle was undamaged. Aaaaand relax.

Miscellaneous Observations and Curiosities

So a lot of people have been asking my how my trip was, and in typical Yorkshire style, I’ve been tending to play it down.

“Yeh, it was good,” I say, “it had its moments.”

Yes it did, and yes , it was cold… some of the time. It was nowhere near as bad as the pictures coming out of the United States the week after we left, and I understand it was worse in Toronto and Manitoba than where we were, but it did get down below -20 from time to time. I say ‘from time to time’ because in Calgary the temperature fluctuates wildly from one day to the next. In fact, they regularly experience chinook winds, which are hot winds that can raise the temperature dramatically in a very short time. These have been known to cause temperatures to increase by as much as 40 degress Celsius in as little as an hour.

So one day we might walk, freezing across a car park and get into the car to find the worst effects were carried in our jeans – which hold the cold and then transfer it to your legs when you sit down. The next day, the temperature might have risen to -3, when you go outside and say this is positively balmy. I’d sunbathe in this.

The Canadians, funny people that they are, have leather seats in a lot of their cars. Leather seats at the temperatures they have to contend with – so they have to have heating mechanisms in them. Honestly, just get your car seats made out of regular fabric.

What else? Beers. Yes, I drank lots of different kinds of Canadian beer, but I haven’t talked about it so far, and for very good reason; generally I don’t, and I didn’t keep any kind of record. The Big Rock Traditional Ale is a particularly good one, but in general they successfully tread the difficult line between good lager and refreshing ale. There were even a number of decent IPAs and double IPAs.

A quick much of a muchness update

In advance of our trip to the mountains, Mrs Cake decided to contribute to the spirit collection by buying a bottle of the Grey Goose. It’s quite a pricey vodka here in the UK, but temptingly cheap over in Canada. It’s one of them I’ve been curious about trying, but have never quite been up to stumping up that price tag.

Grey Goose is French, and according to its website, “made using only the very finest ingredients”. It also claims a “signature smoothness and distinct character”.

Yeah… I don’t like it. I’m not saying it doesn’t have a distinct character; that awful, floral flavour is something I’ll never forget –and hope never to experience again, but it’s that same flavour that to me is the opposite of smoothness.

I’ll say one thing for Grey Goose; their website has a tool for selecting your ideal cocktail. Based on my stipulations that I want something salty, earthy, strong and rich… it tells me I want a Grey Goose Spicy Pineapple and Fig Martini, and you know what? That is what I want. Perhaps with a different vodka though.

So anyway, it’s 40%, and comes in a fancy bottle bearing multi-layered images of geese. It’s a bit ridiculous. I don’t recommend it.

I’ll leave you then, with two observations about Canada that you might find interesting. First, you can’t buy your booze in the supermarket; you have to go to a liquor store. Oddly though, some of the liquor stores are clearly affiliated with the supermarkets, and situated on the same lot. Sadly, this means there are no supermarket own-brands to try.

Finally,  they have UFC on TV… in restaurants. Now, I do love watching a bit of the MMA, but for Christ’s sake, not while I’m eating!

So that’s it for this week. Thanks for joining me once again. If you’ve been following me on the Twitter you might have noticed that I’ve just got back from Spain where purchasing booze was very much on the agenda. I’m looking forward to telling you all about that in what will probably turn out to be a few months’ time. Whatever. Just make sure you come back here next week for something else. I don’t know what yet, but something else. Alright, cool.