Actual important research, carried out scientifically - The Standard Supermarket Blended Scotch Test

Concept

Having started my whisky love affair around 10 years ago with Aldi’s 8 year old Highland Black, a blend I consider to be a ‘standard supermarket blend’ (though it probably actually isn’t, given its declared 8 years), I have, as my knowledge of whisky and taste for it develops, for some time now held a curiosity about how good standard supermarket blends actually are. I hadn’t bought one since the last time I bought the Highland Black, as you generally only have to pay a couple of pounds more to get a basic entry level brand – Cutty Sark, Ballantine’s Finest, Dewar’s, Whyte and Mackay, Bell’s, Teachers, Grant’s, Johnnie Walker Red, and The Famous Grouse are all what I would call affordable – but that curiosity kept on niggling away at me. I was going to have to do something about it, something like getting a bottle of each standard supermarket blend in all at once and holding a tasting – even if it was just with myself.

Now, I didn’t want to be stuck with 3.6-4.2 litres of crap scotch when I was done, but the supermarkets have already thought of that – you can buy most of them in 35cl bottles, so while I wouldn’t normally buy a half size bottle without good reason, I decided to make that one of the experiment’s conditions of entry. Unfortunately, that prevents Highland Black from entering, but I can always get it to play the winner later on – assuming this experiment doesn’t put me off cheap blends for good.

I was actually thinking of doing this with all the genres of spirits, but while drinking a glass of standard Sainsburys white rum one day, I realised white rum, gin and vodka were all likely to be dull – and then I would be stuck with litre upon litre of crap spirits. On top of that, budget spirits brands tend to be around only 36-37.5% alcohol and that renders them fairly uninteresting for a start, but with whisky, you can’t even call it whisky unless it reaches the standard 40%. To paraphrase Jim Murray; don’t add water to your whisky, as in most cases that will bring it to below 40% ABV… and then it ain’t whisky no mo’. Something like that.

So anyway, finally we will know which supermarket has the best standard blended scotch. I’ll be contacting the winner to congratulate them on their prestigious achievement, and I’ll let you know if they respond.

Competition Rules

1. It must be a standard blended scotch. Some supermarkets offer a super cheap expression – budget, no frills, value, everyday essentials (perhaps not every day… I’m not sure a supermarket would be allowed to suggest you drink scotch every day…) and the like – these are ineligible, as is any supermarket expression that is slightly above standard.
2. It must state “bottled for [insert supermarket]” on the label.
3. It must be available in a 35cl bottle (or smaller).
4. Those are all the rules.

There was going to be a rule about not having to ask for the whisky at a counter, thus weeding out mini-markets and things that can’t be considered a supermarket. In the end though, I had to drop this rule because the Cooperative is a supermarket, it does have its own brand of blended scotch, and I had to ask for it from behind the counter in the Piccadilly Gardens branch.

Collection

Yes, I am a geek, but I am not geeky enough to visit all the supermarkets in one day in order to buy their standard blend. Nor did I want to spend around £50 on cheap scotch in one day. Instead, I figured I could just collect one whenever I was passing a supermarket, or happened to be popping in…

Time to start engineering “impromptu” trips to Tesco, Morrison’s, Asda, Sainsburys, Waitrose and Marks and Spencer. Aldi don’t do a half bottle, nor do Lidl, though they would have been able to enter if they did.

Tesco (Burnage) and Morrison’s were accomplished with no difficulty, since I go in Tesco fairly frequently anyway and we were passing the Morrison’s by Sheffield’s Parkway on the way to Phil’s one weekend.

A week or two later a leisurely Saturday afternoon turned into a trip to the big Asda (Hulme), and then a need to pick up lunch one Wednesday led to a stop at Sainsburys (Birchfields Road).  It wasn’t all plain sailing though.

I knew Waitrose would be tricky, since we don’t have many of those in the north. I heard Mrs Cake was heading to Wilmslow one weekend and enlisted her to pop in, even finding the product online in order to provide her with a picture and make sure she got the right one... only for her to change her plans and therefore scupper mine. That turned out to be the last I collected, having to call into the small one on Bridge Street after a Christmas party.

The same week Mrs Cake changed her plans with regard to Waitrose, a trip to the M&S in Trafford Centre proved fruitless. They didn’t have their standard blend in a 35cl bottle, and while they did have a 20cl of the 5 year old Kenmore variety I quickly decided that would be ineligible since it was one class above standard. I actually stood there for about 5 minutes, hoping I’d spot a 35cl standard blend if I looked hard enough, but in the end I had to admit defeat and wait until I could pop into the M&S in town – even managing to resist the temptation to buy the Kenmore just for the sake of it. Rules: sometimes they are good.

I finally had to exclude M&S altogether when I did make it to the big store in town, and they didn’t have a 35cl bottle. They do have it in 70cl, and I would really like to be able to compare it to all the others, but I’m sorry M&S, rules are rules so don’t go breakin em.

Pricing

More or less across the board, the blends were priced at a tempting and affordable £6.50 to £7. Asda, Tesco and Morrison’s inhabited the lower end of the scale, while Sainsburys consider themselves that 50p classier. Waitrose’s website states that theirs is £7, but that must be online and in the big stores, since I had to pay something like £7.35 (sorry, I forget exactly how much it was).

The real surprise though, was that I had to pay a ma-hoossive £8.35 for the Cooperative’s entry. At this stage I don’t know whether this is because I bought it from a small city centre store and whether it would have been cheaper say, in West Didsbury or whether it’s just that expensive. What I do know is that I don’t want to be collecting supermarket whiskies forever, so I just bought it anyway to hurry things along a little. What started out as a long term project to be completed whenever had quickly turned into an obsession as I clamoured to complete my collection and get the tasting underway. Time would tell whether it would be worth all the effort.

In total then, I spent £42.19 on 210cl of  standard supermarket blends.

Method

McKendrick's (Asda) vs Waitrose

So how would the test be carried out? I considered pouring all six into glasses at once and then just drinking them side by side, but I actually wanted a companion for this experiment. Enter David, fellow member of the Manchester Whisky Club, who was delighted to come over one Friday night and help out.

I would ideally have liked to have two rounds, three whiskies in each round with a winner being picked from each and facing each other in the final, but it turns out I only have 5 glencairn glasses. So instead, David came up with a winner stays on system, whereby we would each start with the same two samples, decide on a winner, and then compare it with the next sample until one was left standing at the end.

Before we could start the tasting though, let us consider another important factor, presentation.

Presentation

spirit wheel

I like that they all come in bottles of an identical size and shape. It means you can arrange them like this for interesting photographs. I actually like this bottle shape anyway, since it is clearly designed to fit snuggly into your jacket pocket, like a hip flask (though it isn’t shaped to fit your hip). If you see someone buying one of these, you just assume they’re going to drink it straight away, don’t you? Perhaps that’s why M&S don’t do one – they’re too classy for that kind of thing.

It is interesting to me to see the various similarities and differences. Both Tesco and Asda have gone for a traditional and professional look. Asda have actually gone so far as to name theirs McKendricks Whisky - lah-di-dah -  rather than just something generic like Blended Scotch or Select Reserve.

Sainsburys and Morrisons on the other hand, have gone for minimal fuss with a modern, uncluttered label, one depicting a distillery in a circular box and the other a thistle. Co-op have depicted a piper and included a silver medal from the IWSC (the only entry to do so), while Waitrose haven’t even bothered to include a generic Scottish image, but there you go.

I find it interesting that Asda and Tesco have specified that their product was aged for at least 3 years in oak barrels, since that’s a minimum requirement for calling it scotch whisky. So for whatever reason, the other supermarkets have chosen to eschew that information, presumably secure in the knowledge that their customers either know that already, or aren’t likely to be swayed by any lack of age statement and maturing information. I suppose if you’re buying an own brand blend, you’re not snooty about these things – since the only other option is to leave the supermarket and go to another one… not really worth it for the sake of an age statement.

Particularly amusing was that, when I searched for Asda’s standard blend on their website, it informed me that the 35cl bottle is frequently bought with Asda brown onions. Make of that what you will.

Colour

before...

This is weird. They are all exactly the same colour. There has to be caramel added, so presumably this represents an exact whisky colour profile that is considered to be most attractive to the consumer – though I can’t think why; I certainly don’t find it inspiring. This is whisky that is brown rather than an attractive pale gold or amber. One thing’s for sure, none of the supermarkets have decided to take a risk by being any different to any of the others. It makes you wonder whether the whisky is in fact the same. It will be a massive disappointment if that turns out to be the case.

Surprisingly, this uniformity doesn’t carry over into the glass. Yes, they are similar, but when we poured our first two samples (Asda and Waitrose), we noticed that the Waitrose was darker. Then, later we noticed that Tesco’s entry was closer to the Waitrose colour, but not as… shimmery.

Tasting

I had planned to break this next section down into categories of nose, palate and finish, but let’s be realistic; with all that booze floating about and only a very light tea consumed, we were starting to get hammered pretty quick and my notes became illegible and fragmented. I’ll just try and relate what I’ve got.

We started, as I said with Asda’s McKendrick’s and Waitrose. The nosing immediately revealed a startling difference. We liked Asda, but Waitrose gave a hit of nail varnish, caramel and molasses.

When we moved on to the tasting, we were immediately impressed with Asda. It is light and sweet, reminding me of the Ballantine’s Finest that I’d recently been enjoying. David said it had a ‘grittiness’ that he liked. I didn’t really understand and we had a brief discussion about how people seem to describe spirits they are trying for the first time as “smooth”, and how in a lot of cases I a) don’t know what they mean, and b) think they’re just making it up for something to say because smooth is considered good. David and I agreed we both like a degree of roughness to our spirits, a bit of burn.

Anyway, when it came to the Waitrose, we were both horrified. What the fuck is this? It’s minging. How dare they bottle this and pass it off as blended scotch? It reminded me very much of the Wall Street that I picked up in Vietnam. We concluded it had definitely been coloured with caramel spirit, and was devoid of any character or redeeming features. Waitrose, this is just awful.

So Asda was the clear (and unexpected) winner. We selected Tesco as the next contender, refilling our Asda glass, and swilling out the Waitrose one. I tried drinking the whole Waitrose sample, but it wasn’t nice, so I threw some of it down the sink. For the second round I poured smaller measures.

We noted that Tesco gave an impression of being artificially coloured on the nose, but it didn’t appear as shiny as Waitrose. When it came to tasting though, we concluded it was bad, though not quite as bad as the Waitrose had been.

Asda was victorious again, and would next face the Morrison’s offering. By this stage I was struggling to taste anything so we had to start sipping sparkling water in between samples to keep our tired palates awake.

Morrison’s proved to be fairly inoffensive on the nose, and on the palate a little harsh – but I liked that. It had a slightly dark flavour at the end, but while it was no match for Asda, it was actually quite pleasant.

Co-op was next up. As [easily] the most expensive of the competitors, you’d be hoping it would have a flavour profile to match. I’m going to give you direct quotes from my note book here:

“I like the Co-op, & [sic] I’m not sure if it’s Asda beating… It was agreed that Vince Vaughn is a twat… Yesh [sic] Co-Op not as good”.

Not as good, but fairly good nonetheless.

Finally then, we have Sainsburys. David proclaimed that this sample was identical to Asda, but I maintained that Asda just has a little something extra, that I’m going to call the edge. There was just a note about the Sainsburys that didn’t sit quite right. Nevertheless, a decent effort.

Before we move on to the verdict, I’d just like to share one more note from my book in direct quotation:

...more or less after.

“David is now unsure what he is drinking, while Neil is unsure of what went before.”

Yeah, we were pretty hammered and ready to start drinking the special stuff we’d been saving. David had brought an Amrut Fusion while the most special thing I had at the time was the Glen Scotia 16. It was about time we ordered some pizza also.

Verdict

When considering the verdict, you’ve got to ask yourself what was the purpose of all this anyway? Obviously I want to see which of the supermarkets has the best blended scotch, but to what purpose? I suppose I’m trying to use this as a benchmark. You see, it isn’t just blends that supermarkets produce their own versions of. There are also ultra-cheap blends, slightly more upmarket, even aged blends, single malts based on various of the distilling regions of Scotland then there are the different varieties of rum, brandy… so I’m wondering whether the quality of the standard blend might tell us something about all the other varieties of own brand alcohol. Sadly you know it won’t. I’ll ultimately have to try all the other varieties too. Since I’m destined to fail on that score, why don’t I break it down to the following questions, and see if that tells us anything:

Are these comparable in terms of quality to the cheap standard brands that they are emulating?

In some cases, yes. Asda, Morrison’s, Sainsburys and Co-op all supplied decent, even pleasant products. As I said, Asda seemed very similar to Ballantine’s, while a later tasting of Sainsburys brought to mind the standard Grant’s. They certainly aren’t to be sniffed at.

Would I buy any of these again?

I would definitely buy Asda’s again, without a doubt. The others listed as comparable above? Sure, if I only had £7, needed a bottle of scotch and only had access to one of those supermarkets. I would buy with confidence.

Is any one supermarket brand the daddy of them all?

Finally, yes. Asda confounded expectation, and is duly crowned the daddy of them all. Seriously, well done Asda and keep up the good work. All that remains is to give you the full list, in order of preference. Here you go:

1. McKendrick’s by Asda
2. Morrison’s Blended Scotch Whisky
3. Sainsburys Blended Scotch
4. Cooperative Blended Scotch
5. Tesco Special Reserve
6. Waitrose Blended Scotch

Thanks for joining me for this scientific experiment. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, found it useful, and that it has answered the question of whether supermarket blends are any good once and for all. Don’t worry, this isn’t the end by any stretch of the imagination. There are always more spirits to try, and David tells me he’d like to do the same thing with the super cheap supermarket blends, so I’ll be sure to let you know how that turns out.

See you again, then.

Postcript

While David and I agreed on the night, and while the results will stand as testament to that, in personal tastings since the Cooperative Blended Scotch has actually excelled, while Morrison’s, which placed 2^nd, has failed to impress, so I would actually like to elevate the Co-operative Blended Scotch to 2^nd, but that’s just for me. For the rest of you, take the ranking above.

Thanks, and see you next time.

Green Spot Story

hmm... looks like wine...

This isn’t actually an historical and factual story of Green Spot single pot still Irish whisky, but rather my convoluted story that culminates in me getting hold of a bottle, which I’m sure you will find absolutely fascinating. Incidentally, if you do want to know a bit of factual information about Green Spot, allow me to recommend Scotchnoob’s review, which you can find here.

In 2002, when I was still in a band, we were offered the chance to play a gig in Dublin. We booked flights with Easyjet or Ryanair, and arranged to stay with the band that invited us, and borrow their amps.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be. The gig was cancelled, and Pits and I were left with two tickets to Dublin and no reason to go. Brenda and I decided we would go instead, but sadly this didn’t happen either; accommodation looked to cost more than we could afford, and it was proving impossible to get through to the airline’s phone number to change the name on Pits’ ticket. So we decided to write it off – couldn’t really afford to, but we couldn’t afford to go either.

I’ve still never been to Dublin, but I would very much like to. I know, I know, it should be easy enough, but it won’t be happening in the next year. The missus and I have already got our various travel plans mentally arranged, so sadly it looked like there would be no opportunity for me to indulge in a bit of Irish whisky collecting – outside of a trip to Tesco.

But, just when I’d given up hope, I had a text from my friend Dave, telling me he was going to Dublin for a couple of days. I wouldn’t normally get all that excited about other people’s travel plans, but I think I was having a bit of a bad week, and for some reason that cheered me right up.

Figuring Dave might have his own Duty Free requirements, I suggested that, you know, if you don’t, and if it’s not too much trouble, would you consider picking me up some nice Irish whisky?

Absolutely no problem, said Dave. He actually sounded delighted to do so, but what did I have in mind? Well, my mind was fairly blank – I just knew that I wanted something I couldn’t buy in Tesco, so I had a quick look at The Whisky Exchange. It wasn’t far down the page that I found Green Spot, another whisky that I recalled reading about in 101 Whiskies toTry Before You Die. 

It’s surprising, the amount of information in that book that turns out to be inaccurate – or rather, to have changed since publication. Green Spot, it says, is produced in small batches of only 6000 bottles every year. I don’t know how many bottles are produced each year now, but this whisky is much more readily available than it once was - due to Irish Distillers Ltd acquiring the distribution licence in 2011 (thanks, Scotchnoob). I suppose I’ll never know whether that has had any impact upon its quality, though Scotchnoob’s review suggests that while the whisky isn’t supposed to have changed, some suspect the newer packaged product is younger and lighter.

Dave had a lovely time in Dublin. He and his missus visited the Guinness brewery, where they learned to pour a “perfect” pint, and then visited the Jameson distillery where they learned some pretty interesting things. [If I remember rightly] they were shown inside a barrel with some new make whisky in it that was almost full, then a barrel of [let’s say] 12 year old that was only half full, and then a barrel of [again, the effect is more important than exact detail] 18 year old that was perhaps a quarter full.

I had always thought that older whisky was more expensive simply because of the amount of time it had to be sitting in a warehouse, not making any money before it could be sold – that’s basic accounting principles. It turns out though, that it is at least as much to do with evaporation of the product –you see, the longer you age it, the less of it you have. This evaporation is known as the angel’s share, which coincidentally is also the title of a 2012 Ken Loach film that I’d never heard of previously…

Suddenly older whiskies don’t seem quite so expensive. In fact, that (again, at thewhiskyexchange) you can buy a 12 year old bottle of Jameson for £50 and an 18 year old bottle for £70, makes the 18 year old start to sound like a bargain! I would just hope the 18 year old is actually better than the 12 year old – not always the case.

Well, I found all that fascinating. Incidentally, Dave also said he took the opportunity to get himself a ‘proper’ whisky glass. When I questioned him about it later though, it turned out not to be the Glencairn glass, but something else entirely, with ‘Jameson’ written on it.

He did indeed come through with the whisky though, and returned bearing a bottle of Green Spot, exactly as requested. Thanks Dave, it’s much appreciated. I’d told him my budget would stretch to £40, and it came in at £35. Cash back; though he did say they were selling it at the Distillery for £60, so it’s a good job he waited to try Duty Free.

It’s not much to look at – in fact, it looks like a wine bottle – but I had high hopes for this, the first bottle of Irish whisky I’d ever try that wasn’t (strictly) Jameson, even though it is distilled at the Jameson distillery, so really it is Jameson, isn’t it? It’s nice to build up a little anticipation, so I waited about a week before allowing myself to open it.

When the right Sunday night came, the missus and I settled down in front of The Inbetweeners Movie, and I opened proceedings with a glass of the Dewar’s, that I might then have something to compare the Green Spot with. I could tell straight away that the Green Spot was a little classier, but the difference wasn’t so pronounced as to push it into the special category. Indeed, it wasn’t until a week (and two glasses) later that this whisky began to show its worth. In fact, I’ve since concluded that Sunday night is not the best time to drink your special spirits. I don’t know about you, but heavy drinking on Friday and Saturday night usually means there is some interference in my tasting faculties by Sunday – or so it seems.

 This time then, we were watching a weird French film called Lemming. I poured a generous glass, and enjoyed it about as much as I think it is possible to enjoy a glass of whisky without, I don’t know, being naked and in the company of a beautiful lady.

The liquid felt soft and oily, it played around the tongue, causing excited jets of saliva to spring forth and enclose it like your cosiest duvet. It was delightful, and was followed by a tinge of sadness when I finally allowed myself to finish the glass around 45 minutes later. Fantastic. I can’t wait till I bring it out again.

That’s all I have to say about Green Spot for now, though I do want to take this opportunity, to set the record straight about the Dewar’s. Once again, I have allowed myself to judge too soon, and it turns out I haven’t been entirely fair. The Dewar’s has revealed itself (over quite a long time) to be a far more complex blend than I have been giving it credit for. Yes, it has the blend taste, but it can also be woody and sweet by turns and has a generous finish. I hereby recommend it. And I recommend Green Spot, too.

That then, brings me to the various pre-weekend formalities. It’s looking like being a quiet one for me tonight, but I’ll still get some of the spirits out – nothing special though; given my hungover state, that was brought on by going a bit mad at the Manchester Whisky Club’s Tomatin night, I think the good stuff would be wasted on me. There’s always tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, our good friends Gav and Clare are coming over, and I’m actually looking forward to opening some wine, because I attempted to follow the advice that Clare gave me after last week’s How DoYou Select Wine? post. We’ll see how I did, and I’ll probably be blogging about all that at some point in the future, so look out for it.

So yes, tomorrow will be drinking and eating, two of my favourite things. I’ve also heard that the legendary DJ Premier is appearing at Sound Control, and I’m wondering whether that might be on the cards later…

Whatever you’re doing, make sure it’s booze-fuelled and trouble free, eh? Have a good un.

What can I do with this bottle of... Scotch?

Happy new year everybody! It’s a sad time around here – after 14 whole days off that went by in a supersonic alcohol-fuelled instant, it’s time to be getting back to work. Of course, returning to work is horrible any time you have more than a standard weekend off, it’s just that 14 days is a long time to have passed by so quickly. The best bit is the whole period from the beginning to the time when you realise there will actually be a day soon when you have to go back to work. Being able to forget about work altogether is wonderful, but it just makes it worse for those last few days when you start counting the minutes, and doing as little as possible, hoping that it will make time go slower. And now it’s back to the endless cycle of looking forward to every coming weekend.

I did have a whole new year’s eve themed post planned, but I barely even got near a computer in my time off, so while it was written, I never got around to posting it. It seems a bit irrelevant now, so I may just lift a few things from it for upcoming posts – or save it till next year.

Yes, the missus and I spent the entire holiday drunk and recovering from being drunk. It was certainly never the intention, but I think I ended up drinking every single day except New Year’s Day itself. I had planned to have a drink that evening, figuring it would be necessary to make me feel better, but by the time evening came, I felt so ill I could barely keep the Chinese takeaway down that I’d been looking forward to all fricking day. One day we even drank all day, from breakfast to bedtime, but more on that another time.

I’ll be going on a bit of a detox now then, I think. I’ve actually made myself sick of booze, which isn’t good news for you – assuming you like the blog. By the time you read this, a couple of days will have passed though, and I should be back to my booze-craving best. I wouldn’t worry too much; the festive period did provide a few more things for me to write about, but we’ll get to those later no doubt.

Without any further prevarication then, let’s get on to this week’s post.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a “What can I do with this bottle of…?” feature, so it’s about time I think, for a new one.

Now, in case I haven’t made it blatantly obvious in previous posts, I like scotch. But that doesn’t mean I have to like all scotch. In fact, I have come to the conclusion that some scotch is bad. I’ll bet you knew that already. Nevertheless, if you did happen to come into possession of a bottle of scotch that you can’t glean any enjoyment from on its own, what can you do with it, short of giving it to the red nosed old man at the bus stop? And I don’t mean Father Christmas. The one sitting by the pile of sick. That one.

Well, this post has been in construction for quite some time, so we’ll be meeting a few different brands in our experiments, and I’m actually going to structure this post by brand, just to make it a bit less messy. To be fair, most of these brands aren’t actually what I’d call bad scotch. Some are ok, some are even pretty good, but all were pretty much the worst scotch I had available at the time of each experiment. Let’s get started, shall we?

Avoid!

Glen Moray Classic

That bit I said before about some of the scotches not actually being bad: this is the one that actually is bad. Really bad. Sorry to my friend who bought me this as a birthday present. Your intentions were honourable, and I sure appreciate the effort, but this is the worst scotch I have ever tasted, and it’s a single malt at that. In fact, it’s the cheapest single malt I’ve seen in the shops so far (around £17), and it’s cheaper than two of the blends that are coming up later in the post.

Glen Moray is an insipid urine colour and has a prominent metallic taste that lingers long past its welcome. Some might call that a ‘finish’, but the only good place for a metallic finish is on a new car. Good points? It has a cork rather than a screw cap, so at least it sounds good when you open it. You should probably always be wary of single malt scotch that doesn’t carry an age statement – unless it’s cask strength, let’s say.

After a few attempts of drinking it on its own, I tried a couple of experiments. First, the Whisky Mac, which is simply scotch with a splash of ginger wine. You can read a little bit more about that drink here. I’m not massively into ginger I’m afraid, and despite it being a strong flavour, it couldn’t prevent that metallic taste from the Glen Moray cutting right through. This was the only occasion I can remember this year of actually throwing a drink down the sink, rather than have to finish it. If I’m only going to have one drink this evening, I said to myself, I don’t want it to be this one.

This next drink, I first tried with one of my other blends, but I’ll come to that shortly. It was successful with that one, so I thought I’d give it a try with Glen Moray, and surprisingly the results were pleasing here, too.

the soft touch family

The Soft Touch is 1 measure of whisky, half a measure of London dry gin and half a measure of triple sec, stirred with ice and topped up with soda. It’s not a strongly flavoured drink, but the gin adds a nice floral touch and the soda makes it satisfyingly refreshing. I got the recipe from the rumhowlerblog website. If you haven’t visited before, Rumhowler is well worth a look, both for researching bottles of all the various kinds of liquor, and also for serving suggestions for each one.

After that, the Glen Moray remained untouched until the drunken chess match that I played with Phil earlier this year. I took it along as something to neck rather than to enjoy – since I knew that would be the order of the day. I still wasn’t able to finish it that day, so a week or so later I just poured what was left into a glass, and did what had to be done.

bargain Whyte and MacKay

Whyte and Mackay Special

Whyte and Mackay was an impulse buy, when I saw it on offer for £12 in Tesco. I’d never tried it before, but judging by the blurb on the label, it looked like it was quite highly thought of. I don’t know how much credence you can give to that, mind; I’m sure Bell’s is highly thought of among their marketing department.

Both the malt whiskies and the grain whiskies that make up the blend are aged, though for an unspecified amount of time, and I would expect that is probably the case with all blends, isn’t it? Most, at least.  Scotchnoob suggests grain whiskies need to be aged for around 17 years before they start to taste good, but I’m fairly sure a blend at the lower end of the spectrum isn’t going to include any that are that old. Probably even grain whiskies start to get expensive at 17 years old.

I did buy it just to see what it was like, expectations low, and I wasn’t overawed by any means. I’d like to say it has a dark flavour, but I don’t see how you could have any inkling of what I mean by that. As you know, I’m woefully inadequate at describing whisky. With each passing glass though, my appreciation deepened. I didn’t mind using it to mix drinks (I think I had at least 3 other whiskies on the go at that point), but nor did I mind drinking it straight, when I didn’t feel like depleting the stocks of my more precious liquors.

The Godfather is a mix of amaretto and scotch. I found it on Wikipedia, and I’m afraid the relative quantities weren’t specified. I mixed at a ratio of 1:1. It was ok, but the Whyte and Mackay was preferable on its own.

I tried the Soft Touch with this one before trying it with the Glen Moray, and was impressed enough to try it with that one, as I said just before. It is nice, but if you like scotch, it’s hard to justify diluting its stronger flavours so much.

mint julep

The Rumhowler also suggests a drink called AlpineMeadows, which is one and a half measures of Glenfiddich 15 year old or Highland Park 12 year old with ¾ of a measure of gin and ¾ of a measure of triple sec, but without soda. That’s very specific, isn’t it? – all those fractions. Clearly Rumhowler has a far more sensitive palate than I do. He’s the drinking equivalent of a musician that insists on playing a ’74 Strat on a record instead of an ’86 one, because he can hear the difference. I certainly didn’t fancy giving any of my Highland Park over to such a mix, and had intended to try it with a cheaper scotch, but on reflection the HP is quite a fine, light-bodied malt, and no doubt that would be instrumental in the outcome of the drink. I just couldn’t see any point in trying it with a blended scotch. Perhaps my palate is developing after all…

My final experiment with Whyte and Mackay was the Mint Julep. Really you should be using bourbon, but I didn’t have any, and I couldn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work with scotch anyway. And it did. It’s just the kind of cocktail I like; press some mint leaves in a glass with a tablespoon of sugar syrup, fill the glass with crushed ice, then pour three measures of whisky over it. Very nice.

Grant's

Grants

what it should look like

Another impulse buy, because I saw on hotukdeals that ASDA were selling bottles for £11. It’s light bodied and light coloured, but again, pretty good for a blend. By the time I got to the stage that I wanted to finish it and make room in the cupboard for a new acquisition, I had gone off mixing drinks somewhat, so I drank nearly all of this straight. I did get around to trying the Bourbon Milk Punch, though.

BMP recipe

what it looked like

Obviously I used Grants instead of bourbon, and the results were satisfactory. Nice and sour, how I like it, but it turned out that the honey didn’t make it into the drink. I think it just went hard, and stayed in the shaker.

My gripe with this drink is the quantity. I don’t think the glass I used is much bigger than the one in the photo in the book, but on seeing that, you’d be expecting something fairly large, instead of the little dribble I got. You’re probably best doubling up on everything to make it worthwhile.

The Black Grouse

The saga of acquiring this bottle has been fully documented already. It is supposed to be the Famous Grouse’s interpretation of the Islay style, but I never quite came to appreciate that. I tasted a little bit of peat smoke… once. It never quite floated my boat, so I did try one drinks combination. Scotch on the rocks with a twist was suggested by an episode of Columbo (see also, the Drinks with convicted killers part 2 post for a full evaluation). It’s exactly what you’d think it is, and I don’t really have anything more to say about it.

Classy

Dewar’s 12 Years Old, Double Aged

Ah, the Dewar’s; a litre bottle that I purchased in Duty Free, thinking I was getting something special. But no, that would be the Special Reserve. This isn’t that bad though, actually. It took half a litre, but one day I really started enjoying it, and I was pleased that I still had half a litre left. At first I thought it had that dark flavour that I referred to in describing Whyte and Mackay, but that only lasts the duration of your first sip. After that it seemed to be grain whisky all the way, but it did benefit from holding it in my mouth a lot longer than you normally might. That way I seemed to get a little beyond the grain flavours, and at least to a hint of woodyness.

Now I think I must have been drinking it at the wrong time – like, on a Sunday when I’m coming off a heavy drinking session – because one day I came to appreciate a good deal more complexity in it than was immediately apparent. It’s actually quite delicate for a blend. Let that be a lesson to you; don’t trust your impressions of a spirit the day after a heavy session. And don’t bother drinking your special spirits until you’re fully compus mentus again.

My one experiment with this (so far) is whisky and beer, which was suggested by stupid underdog movie, Bad News Bears, Billy Bob Thornton. We couldn’t have gotten more than 10 minutes in before deciding we knew everything that was going to happen and that we didn’t want to watch the rest, but that was long enough to see the aforementioned Mr Thornton open a can of beer, pour a good quantity away, and then top up the can with whisky. I couldn’t tell you why he didn’t just drink the quantity that he wanted to remove from the can – I would – but he didn’t.

Mrs Cake asked if I’d ever tried that, and I said I thought I recalled doing that thing where you buy a pint of lager and a shot of whisky and drop the shot glass into the beer glass, then drink both. A friend of mine at university did it, and made himself ill. I’m not sure if I’d actually tried it, or if I just remembered him telling me about it, but I know it didn’t make me ill.

So the other Saturday I thought I’d try it as a warm up before going out. I poured myself a can of Holsten Pils and added two shots of Dewar’s 12 year old. I didn’t need to drink any of the lager to make room, as the can was 440ml and the glass was a full pint.

The taste of the Dewar’s permeated the whole of the lager, and in quite a pleasing way. I felt that what I keep referring to as Dewars’ ‘dark’ flavour complemented the lager quite nicely. It just caused me to wonder what the point in it is, though. Presumably it’s a good way of getting a buzz on quickly, but you could do that by downing a double whisky and chasing it with a lager. The taste of both combined isn’t preferable to each on its own, but as I say; the Dewars isn’t that bad a blend in the first place. Perhaps if you were to try this with the Glen Moray Classic, you might perceive more benefit.

I don’t know whether people tend to do this in real life, but the fact the character in the film does is no doubt supposed to communicate something about him, like, I don’t know, he’s a maverick redneck alcoholic.

Drinking out of a glass is a little classier than the beer can method in the film, but that’s not particularly important.

Well, that’s all there is for now. I’m sure I’ll be returning to this theme at some point in the future, so do check back. If you’re looking for more scotch based combinations, your best bet is the Rumhowler blog, as I said before. He suggests a drink for every bottle he reviews, so it’s a useful resource. Most of those whiskies are probably good enough to drink on their own, though.

Just a couple of notes before I go. First this Sunday is the anniversary of my first ever post. This one marks my 65^th. I doubt I’ll be able to be so prolific next year, but I’ve enjoyed the journey, and will hopefully be motivated enough to keep the effort up, and keep on improving. So, thanks to everyone that’s read the blog, especially those that have visited regularly. Keep it up.

Finally, just a word on the approaching weekend, and what you can look forward to in the coming weeks. Being that we’ve just had Christmas, I’ve come into a couple of extra bottles of scotch, as you do if you’re the enviable member of your family who routinely gets scotch for Christmas. That brings my current whisky family to 5 members. After conducting an inpromtpu tasting with Paul last week (that will probably come up in this blog at some point), I thought it would be negligent of me not to put all five of these to the test, side by side. So that’s what I’m going to do tonight… after I’ve cleaned the car we’re selling, and taken it where it needs to go…

So it will be Dewar’s 12 year old blended scotch vs Green Spot single pot still Irish whisky, vs Caol Ila 18 year old single malt, vs Balvenie 12 year old “double wood”, vs Gordon and MacPhail Scapa 2001.

It should be interesting. Don’t expect the results straight away mind, I think I have some other posts to get out of the way before I reveal the results of the comparison.

Whatever you’re up to, I hope the new year blues aren’t hitting you too bad. Have a good un, and remember to check back next week for… something else.

Drinks with convicted killers, part 2: Scotch on the rocks with a twist

just one more thing...

Hey! Welcome to the second edition of Drinks with convicted killers. It’s a bit of a tenuous link this time, since the killer in question is fictional; it’s Vivian Dimitri from the Columbo episode, “Rest in Peace, Mrs Columbo” (1990). In addition to that, I can't be absolutely sure that she was convicted. 

I’m a big fan of Columbo, so it’s nice to be able to feature it on my blog. The episode in question concerns a triple murder plot. First, our villain kills a colleague whom she holds responsible for ensuring her embezzling, murdering husband was locked away some years previously (by Columbo) then, while Columbo is investigating this murder, she plots to kill the elusive Mrs Columbo, because she wants the sneaky detective to understand the pain and loss she feels.  Assuming that all goes according to plan, she intends to finally kill Columbo himself.

 

Good luck with that! Our villain makes two basic errors in her assumption before making one really stupid error. First, she assumes she’s going to be able to get away with murder, and second that Columbo – a detective she’s already familiar with – isn’t going to be able to solve it, or even remember her from 8 years previously. Then, she assumes Columbo would accept a jar of homemade lemon curd from a murder suspect and give it to his wife – even after he has revealed that he knows who she is! Crazy! All he has to do is test it at the lab, and even if he can’t get her for the first murder, he’s got her for attempted murder.

Obviously Columbo isn’t the most tightly plotted show out there, and nine times out of ten his conclusive evidence isn’t going to stand up in court, but this time its flimsy logic may have been stretched just a little too far.

Well, after the first murder, but before the body has been discovered, the villain meets Lovejoy’s Ian McShane for dinner, and orders a ‘scotch on the rocks, with a twist’. My ears pricked up immediately on hearing this; interesting idea. I know I’m no whisky expert or anything, but scotch is supposed to be something you enjoy on its own (perhaps with a little water). I used to drink it with ice, back when I started, but it’s true: ice mutes all the various flavours and aromas. Drinking scotch with ice now is like drinking a mild scotch-flavoured ice water.

But… with a twist… interesting. It just so happened that I was watching this particular episode at a time when I’d got two cheap bottles of blended scotch on the go (Grant’s and The Black Grouse) - at least one of which I needed to polish off before I could justify opening a third (Dewar’s 12 Year Old) – and I’ve not been enjoying the Black Grouse. I certainly wasn’t averse to sticking a bit of lemon juice in there.

As expected, the ice dulled many of the Black Grouse flavours (though not all) and the lemon juice added a bit of a kick. I don’t really know if I’d recommend it, unless maybe you don’t like scotch, but if you don’t like scotch, why don’t you just drink something you do like? Eh?

Well, that’s that for this week. Writing for the blog has had to take a bit of a backseat recently, as I’ve been working on applying for a secondment. The amount of work it’s took has been mighty disproportionate, considering it’s only for 6 months, but it’ll be worth it if I get it – temporary pay rise, experience, change of scenery and… the chance to suit up on a daily basis. I don’t want to come over all Barney from How I Met Your Mother, but I’ve become a bit of  a suit fan since getting one made to measure for my wedding. If you would normally score yourself a 6 out of 10 let’s say, a good suit will nudge you up to a 36 out of 10. That’s you to the power of you. Sure, I could wear a suit every day in my current job, but I’d feel over-dressed.

Anyway, this weekend the little lady and I are entertaining the group of friends from work that I drink with from time to time. It’ll be all homemade curry and lots of booze, so it should be fun. I’m not looking forward to the washing up, but I am looking forward to the inevitable booze and food shopping. I’ll be needing cheap tequila for the margaritas, wine and enough cans of beer and cider for everyone, so let’s hope there’s some offers on at Tesco.

Whatever you’re up to; have a good ‘un and I’ll see you next week. Hopefully I’ll’ve had chance to work on some more stuff by then.

What is it with whisky reviews? Part 2: Colour Classification

In a previous post I got all carried away with the phenomenon of whisky reviews; and by that I mean the way people dissect the flavour and scent of whisky and separate it into constituent parts – vanilla, cloves, red berries etc. If you didn’t see that post, you can have a shuffty here (it was only last week), or if you can’t be bothered with that, here’s a particularly evocative example from the Caol Ila website. 

CAOL ILA 18 YEAR OLD

Age introduces a golden colour and complexity to this mellow, amber Caol Ila. It starts smoky-sweet on the nose then drinks smoothly, showing a sweet yet sour character. The long-lived finish evokes a distant, smouldering beach bonfire.

NOSE

Smoky bonfires, then soapy water and wet wool, with a smouldering beach bonfire in the distance. Hints of mineral oil, then wax. Develops scents of burnt pork sausages.

That one’s not actually that bad; it keeps the flavours listed to a minimum, and instead goes for more of a description, but still; you can see the sort of thing I’m getting at.

When I was writing the post, I was also ensconced in a book that you may have seen me make mention of a good few times already: Ian Buxton’s 101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die. I remarked on how his reviews classify the colour of the whisky as well as the scents and flavours. So I thought it would be nice to follow up What is it with whisky reviews? by delving a little deeper into that.

colour charts

I am well aware, as I’m sure you are, that the colour of whisky can vary quite widely (within certain parameters – I mean, it’s never going to be green, is it?). What confuses me is how someone could look at one whisky, and say ‘that’s golden amber’, then look at another one and say, ‘that’s amber gold’.

 

Sure, the colour of some whiskies differ greatly from others, but it is also true that some are quite similarly coloured. ‘How does he do it?’ I asked myself. “Does he have a Dulux colour chart or what?”

And thusly was an idea born. The next time I had a reason to go to B&Q (purchasing a blueberry bush for my sister’s housewarming present), I stopped by the paint aisle and collected all the colour cards that might represent the colour of whisky. These aren’t standard Dulux colours that you can buy in tins, but the ones you can have the staff mix up for you, and there were quite a serious number that might correspond to the colour of whisky. I ended up collecting 17 cards. Some were classed as yellows and some as reds. Oddly, the ones that were classed as gold weren’t anywhere near the colour of whisky. I say oddly because Buxton’s book has a good number of the whiskies classed as some form of gold or other. I stashed the cards in the pouch of my hoody, and took them home where they now sit in my booze cupboard awaiting any occasion I pour a glass of whisky.

I’ve never really found those B&Q colour swatches useful. Just as I find it impossible to taste a drink and say, “this tastes of cloves, fresh mown grass and mussels”, I have an inability to look at a 6.1 x 2.8cm block of colour and apply it mentally to a whole room. In addition to that, I’d contend that the paint looks a different colour on your walls than it does on the sample.

Nevertheless, I thought it would be fun to apply an actual guide to help with classification. If I can also determine what the Dulux classification is for some whiskies that appear in the book; that will be great – of course it will ultimately be pointless, but nevertheless great. And maybe one day I can paint a room the same colour as one of my favourite whiskies, and maybe that will be all relaxing, and when I drink a glass of that whisky, I might feel like I’m swimming in it.

Actually, a few years ago, [I think it was] B&Q [who] ran an advertising campaign, the gist of which was that if you found a colour you wanted, you could take a sample of it, and they would mix up a paint of that colour for you. In one such advert, a woman liked the colour of a man’s hoody, and cut a chunk off of it with a pair of scissors. By that token, how cool would it be to take a bottle of whisky into B&Q, pour a glass, and say, “I want a paint in this colour”?

Now, in case you don’t already know, the recommended practice for appraising colour is to pour a glass, and then gaze at it against a white background. Until I read the 101 whiskies book, I hadn’t realised the point was that you could then try to decide what colour it was. I thought it was just so you could go, “that looks nice”. It always looks nice.

My first experiment was with the Dewar’s 12 Years Old, double aged that I picked up in Ibiza Airport’s Duty Free shop. I saw the other week that you can get 70cl in Sainsburys for the same price that I paid for a litre there. That seems to be how Duty Free works, in the main; 30cl extra free. It’s just a shame that sometimes you don’t want the extra. I’ll be a little more careful in Duty Free next time.

I poured a generous glass, held it up to my kitchen cupboard and cycled through my various colour cards, attempting to see which one matched most closely.

Dewar's 12 yo, golden bark 3

I was initially a little sceptical that I would find any exact match, but I think I did fairly well. I may not be quite on the money, but I think its close enough. Take a look at the picture, and see for yourself. So Dewar’s 12 Years Old, Double Aged is Golden Bark 3. I can’t compare this one to the Dewar’s in the book, because I got the wrong Dewar’s. The one in the book is “Special Reserve”. Oh well.

While I’m on it, I may as well give you a brief first impression of the Double Aged Dewar’s; I was impressed at first. You know that I don’t know how to describe flavours, but my first reaction was, “oh yes, that’s a classy taste”, but then the familiar blended scotch taste took over (must be the grain), and each succeeding sip was an attempt to repeat the experience of the first sip – mostly unsuccessfully. It seems I had become desensitised to it already. If that’s the way it stays, it looks like being a frustrating whisky. Time will tell. And then it will probably tell all over again. Litre frickin’ bottle, I don’t know.

Grant's, sulphur springs 3

I moved on, and was able to try a swatch test with my bottle of Grants’ just before I finished it. It’s a good deal lighter in colour than the Dewar’s, and came out as Sulphur Springs 3, as you can see. At that point I decided I’d try a few more before publishing my findings. Here they are in order of experiment:

Courvoisier VSOP

I couldn’t find a match for this one, but that’s ok as I didn’t get brandy coloured colour swatches. I thought I might find a match though, as in the bottle it looks a lot like whisky. In the glass it actually has a much more red tint than the whiskies I’ve tried so far.

Maker’s Mark

Maker's Mark - no match

No match this time, either. Ian Buxton describes it as amber, but I’m afraid I couldn’t get anything even near to it from Dulux. Interestingly, the St Remy XO brandy that Brenda brought me back from Paris is described on the St Remy website as amber in colour, and Caol Ila is described as amber in the example at the beginning of this post, yet there is a world of difference between these three.

The Black Grouse

This time I had another success, and with another blended scotch. The Black Grouse came out as Earth Glaze 3. It’s always ‘3’ it seems, so far. I don’t know what an earth glaze is – I would have expected that to be more of a brown, but there you go.

Black Grouse - Earth Glaze 3

Finally, the testing has proved to be quite fun, so I’ll keep it up for as long as it continues to be so. I’m not sure yet whether that will mean another specific post, or whether I’ll just throw a result into any article where I happen to mention a new whisky. So we’ll see.

Mrs Cake thinks I’m doing this just to facilitate my growing obsession with whisky, but I continue to protest that I’m just being silly, and that it is entirely for fun. Which it is really. Anyway, it’s her fault: she bought me the 101 Whiskies book in the first place.

That's it from me for this week, then. I expect I'll be back next Friday with something else. Have a great weekend, and here's hoping for some fun alcohol fueled adventures to write about in the near future.

Booze Tourism part 4: Ibiza, and... part 3 of the Wedding Trilogy; The Honeymoon

Hello! And thanks for coming back for another instalment of Booze Tourism, and part three of my wedding trilogy. This time I’ll be focusing on observations and experiences from my recent honeymoon in Ibiza. This episode will be something of a departure in that this is the first time I’ve actually been a booze tourist since this blog began – all previous instalments were based on trips that occurred before I began writing the blog, and were therefore entirely constructed from memory – like back in March when I wrote the first booze tourism article about Venice. 

When I embarked on that trip (and the others), I had no idea that I would later be writing a blog that would draw upon it. This time then, I was actively looking for things to write about, and trying to form ideas of what I might say as I went along. As a result, you might find that I have a lot more to say.

To prevent this from becoming a long, rambling, eye-stinging jumble of text that no one has the time or inclination to read, I’m actually going to split it into sections, so it’s easier for you to find the bits you might be interested in. I’ll try to fit anecdotes and detail around that basic structure, and we’ll see how it goes. So before we get to the really interesting things, let’s start with the essential...

Spanish Lager, or Cerveza

San Miguel

I think I can safely say I’ve never tried a Spanish lager that I didn’t like – from the first time I ever tried San Miguel, to the Estrella cans that random people sell you on the streets of Barcelona... There don’t really seem to be that many types, but they’re all good. At various points during the holiday I bought 6 to 8 cans of each (as well as the odd giant bottle of San Miguel (I love those things).

Cruzcampo on the beach

I have to say though, despite having been a devotee to beer for many years, I probably couldn’t really tell one from the other if put to the test. But that’s all fine. They’re strong, they taste good, stick em in your fridge and bring one out to chug down when it gets hot – which it invariably does.

I drank one or two beers in the various bars and restaurants we visited, but it seemed a shame to pay bar prices when we had a terrace back at our accommodation, and a fridge to keep our beers cold.

Estrella

Mahou

You can see from my various pictures that I most frequently bought multiple 330ml cans. That’s pretty normal in Spain. One of the supermarkets we visited (in Cala Vadella) actually had some 440ml cans (the type we’re more used to in the UK), but in that heat, 330ml is fine. You don’t need to be stuck drinking a large can when your beer is rapidly warming in the Spanish heat – even when you try to keep it in the shade. Sure, my friends and I used to laugh at the characters in Aussie soap Neighbours for drinking those tiny beers (what’s the matter with them? Lightweights!) but it makes sense, and if you want more, just open another one. It’s at least cold, because it’s been waiting for you in the fridge.

Cruzcampo, San Miguel, Mahou and Estrella were all represented at some point during the 7 days. The only other Spanish beer I can think of just now is Alhambra, but I didn’t see that anywhere. I think that’s more visible in the South of Spain, being that it’s named after the famous building in Granada.

One of the best things about Spain is the availability of booze. Pretty much any store that sells food also sells booze, so you can nip into a bakery, pick up a croissant, and also get a giant bottle of San Miguel… which you can then drink as you walk through the streets, or on the beach, or anywhere. No one cares and there is no stigma, unlike here in the UK.

There was one beach we visited, Cala Salada, where a couple of people had set up their own businesses selling mojitos. They carried all the various paraphernalia in rucksacks, then sat under a parasol mixing the drinks. We didn’t have one, but they looked nice, and it was a nice idea. It was just a shame that you had to drive to the beach, so drinking strong cocktails wasn’t an option for me (much as I would have liked to). As a business venture, it probably wouldn’t win funding on Dragon’s Den, but you’ve got to appreciate the effort.

I suppose the choice of beer in Spain is limited compared to the UK, and that might get tiresome if you actually lived there, but for a visit it’s sufficient.

Aguardiente de Orujo

Booze cavern

If you read my preview to this post, “Looking forward to theDuty Free”, you will recall that aguardiente de orujo was one of my main targets for this trip. Being a fan of Italian grappa, and hearing that this was the Spanish equivalent, I determined I needed to find some. It didn’t take long. On our second (or maybe third) day in Cala Vadella we walked across the beach and up to the local supermarket where, tucked away in the back was an awesome booze cavern.

Before I go any further, one thing you need to know about Spain (besides the fact you can buy booze nearly anywhere) is that they have fantastic booze shops that put our UK ‘specialist’ stores like Carringtons to shame. Even this tiny supermarket had a better variety and selection of booze than most booze shops back home. Somewhat surprisingly, wine was kept to a minimum and intriguing spirits and liqueurs were all over the place. A lot of them were dusty, adding even greater mystique to their appeal.

I knew what I was after, so I bypassed the scotch and the rest of the whiskies, the brandies and the rums – even the grappas, of which there were a few - and stepped into uncharted territory where I didn’t know what the bottles contained. And there I found what I was looking for – two distinct bottles marked aguardiente de orujo.

They were both in unusual bottles that looked like they might have been of more than a passing interest to Indiana Jones – as if they contain the soul of Jesus Christ and the breast milk of the Virgin Mary.

The Virgin Mary's breast milk?

The first, in a grey rectangular shaped bottle, had a price sticker on the top that said 12 euros, while the second was in a more bulbous brown bottle that was for me more intriguing. This one didn’t have any price on it, so I asked the young checkout girl. She didn’t know, so she asked the older lady who was behind the cheese counter.

“Three ninety”, she said (in Spanish).

“Three ninety”, said the girl (in English).

“Three ninety?” said I, also in English. It took me some time to absorb this.

“Si”.

“Three ninety?”

“Si”

“Three… ninety?”

“Si”

I didn’t know what to do with this information, and I already knew what the answer to my next question would be, but I felt like I needed more information.

“…do you know if it’s any good? ‘Cos this other one’s like, 12 euros...”

Shrug.

That was the answer I was expecting.

It appears it was 3.90. I was already prepared for having to make the tough choice between the two bottles, but this actually made things more complicated. I was initially more drawn to the brown bottle, and wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to be astronomically expensive. This was a different prospect altogether – it was microscopically inexpensive. What was I supposed to draw from that?!? How good could 70cl of strong alcohol be (42% ABV, another attractive detail) if it only costs 3 euros and 90 cents?

I remembered that at home we have a few phrases that might provide some guidance; you get what you pay for; you buy cheap, you buy twice and if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. But wouldn’t it be stupid to pay 12 euros for a bottle when I could get one for under 4?

What a quandary. I didn’t go expecting to buy more than one bottle of aguardiente, so I wanted to make sure I got one I’d enjoy. How are you supposed to make these decisions? Well, it went like this: 3.90 is so cheap that if I didn’t like it, I could just throw it away and buy a different bottle. I suppose I could have bought both, but I exercised a bit of restraint for one, and opted for the cheap one: RuaVieja. I can’t remember what the other one was called.

As you can imagine, I couldn’t wait to try it later that evening. When later came, I twisted the cap and poured it into one of the glasses we’d borrowed from our apartment’s bar. It was a clear liquid. It looked like grappa, it smelled like grappa… it tasted like grappa. Fantastic, I love it. And did I mention it was only 3.90? Mrs Cake and I regaled each other with stories of the purchase for the next few days, and now I’m telling you. 3.90!

When we arrived in our second destination, Santa Eulalia in the east of Ibiza’s southern coast, I found a few more excellent booze shops, and made sure to look up RuaVieja to see whether 3.90 was the correct price, or whether I’d gotten a bargain. I found it normally sold for 12 euros, so that was excellent. To be honest, this stuff is so good that it would be a bargain at twice that – especially when you consider how expensive grappa can be in the UK.

Also available were a couple of other varieties, one a cream version and the other a liqueur version with respective alcohol contents of around 24% and 17%.

Being that I was on holiday, I was able to dip into the RuaVieja nearly every evening, sitting on various terraces, sometimes accompanied by a cheap (but nice) cigar that took about 50 minutes to smoke. It was during one of these sessions that I happened to see the lady in the hotel room next to ours completely naked, so that was nice. Let this be a lesson to you: net curtains are not sufficient for preserving your modesty at night when you turn the light on.

Living the dream

There was one major drawback with the RuaVieja; it had one of those screw caps that never reaches an acceptable level of tightness. You could tighten slightly, and then it would just push through to become loose again. I wasn’t intending to drink the whole bottle on holiday, so it presented a problem as to how I was going to get my booty home without leaking its contents all over my bag.

We decided we would just buy some tape, and began the quest of trying to find some. In the UK you can buy tape nearly anywhere, and if you don’t know where to buy something, there’s always the pound shop.

It’s not like that in Spain. They have those tat (I mean ‘gift’) shops everywhere, and they look like our pound shops, but while they do occasionally branch out from stocking tat – such as plastic gorillas you squeeze to make boobies pop out - to carrying a few practical items, tape isn’t one of them. Similarly, supermarkets limit their wares exclusively to food and beverage items.

On the last day it was starting to get desperate, when I saw a shop called Bricolaje, and a conversation I once had with one of our Spanish student lodgers came to mind. I had been telling him about how I was going to be doing ‘DIY’ that weekend, and he didn’t understand what it was. After explaining, I asked what DIY would be called in Spain, and after thinking about it for a while, he decided it was probably ‘bricolaje’. So that bit of knowledge proved useful and I was able to procure some tape and make sure my RuaVieja made it back to Manchester. For good measure I also put it in a ziplock bag. There was a tiny bit of leakage within there, but nothing significant.

I haven’t had occasion to try it again since my return, but I’m looking forward to doing a comparison test with Tesco’s Grappa JuliaSuperiore. 

One final thing; here’s an interesting site with a little more info. It doesn’t look the most professional, but there are some interesting things on there.

Sangria

 “Sun, sea, sex and sangria” is a phrase you might have heard before – maybe you saw it on a t-shirt in the 80s. It’s a piece of alliteration that is commonly used to flippantly describe Spanish holidays. Well, we all know what the first three are, but what is sangria?

Sun, sea...

It’s a drink. Yes, we knew that, but can I be more specific? The answer to that question is: only a little. See, I’d never had sangria before. A bit of checking on Wikipedia reveals that it’s a wine-based punch, popular in Spain, Portugal and Argentina. I kind of knew that without really knowing it, but that’s as far as Wikipedia goes. It seems the recipe is variable.

It’s not something I’d normally think about drinking but… I do write a booze blog, and I was on holiday in Spain. Mrs Cake and I saw another guest at our apartment complex in Cala Vadella carrying a jug back from the bar to the pool area and we thought, we should do that.

...sex and sangria

So we did. Unfortunately, the barmaid had nearly finished making it by the time it occurred to me that it might be useful to take note of what she was putting in it. She definitely put some vermouth in there (Martini Rosso, I think), but other than that and the various chopped fruits, I didn’t see. There were at least 4 spirits, and I think she may have topped it up with cranberry juice, or something like that. If it was wine, it was wine out of a carton rather than a bottle. There were also chunks of orange, lemon, apple and kiwi which we enjoyed eating after the drink was gone.

Nevertheless, it was delicious. I was particularly hot that day, and I could have dispatched that whole jug in an instant. Mrs Cake suggested I nip back to the apartment and pick up a beer instead, to ensure I left some for her.

Hierbas Ibicencas and Absinthe

A few years ago Mrs Cake went to Ibiza with some of her friends. She brought a whole bunch of presents back for me, and one was a bottle of Hierbas Ibicencas. What’s that? This might provide the kind of information you’d like to know 

Twigs

If you can’t be bothered to read all that, it’s an interesting Ibizan alcoholic drink, made from herbs such as rosemary and thyme, and it tastes very aniseedy. The most interesting thing about it is that (as you can see from the various pictures) there are all twigs in the bottle. I’m still fairly new to this booze blogging lark, but I haven’t seen that anywhere else yet.

It took me quite a while to polish off that first bottle, but I used to down a small glass while I was cooking from time to time. I think it’s intended more as an after dinner type thing – a digestif, which just sounds like trying to make a legitimate excuse for having a drink to me. Look, do you want a drink? Yes. Then have one. You don’t need to say, I’ve finished me dinner, I’d better have a digestif… I don’t know: them Europeans.

Twigs

So, I did decide that should I go to Ibiza, and providing it wasn’t too expensive, I would get another bottle of Hierbas Ibicencas. It turns out it’s not too expensive, but to be fair, it’s difficult to find any booze in Ibiza that’s too expensive – unless you go in the clubs. It’s all I could do to make sure I didn’t buy everything.

The first place I saw Hierbas Ibicencas was in the small shop in our apartment complex. A 20cl bottle was 4.90. Now, I’m not a massive fan of aniseed, so I figured a 20cl bottle would suit me just fine, and I like those hip flask shaped bottles you can get.

Mrs Cake said I’d probably be able to get it a lot cheaper, so I figured it would be best to wait until we got to the town of Santa Eulalia before ultimately deciding on a purchase. Oddly, all the bottles in the town were more expensive. Only by another euro or so, but you know, once you’ve seen something for one price, you don’t want to pay more. So it wasn’t until we had a day in Ibiza Town that I got around to buying.

It was a shop by the marina where they actually had four types you could try. Mrs Cake asked the proprietor if we could, and he asked which one we wanted to try. I thought that was a bit tight – I wanted to try them all and then decide which one I wanted to buy. He indicated that two of the four on offer were the best – one had an alcohol content of around 25%, and the other 35%. Well, you know me – when given a choice, the strongest wins. I tried them both anyway. The first (lower alcohol) was sweet and tasted just like the bottle that Mrs Cake had bought me all that time ago. The second was much more to my taste; more savoury, less sticky, more like a spirit. This was something I could drink for relaxation in an evening, if I fancied a change from the usual whisky or grappa. I made my purchase. I think it was 4.30.

One thing I didn’t realise before I started booze shopping was that they also make absinthe in Ibiza. It has a similar aniseedy taste to Hierbas Ibicencas, so I suppose that makes sense. As soon as I saw I could get a small bottle of that for a similar price, I figured it would be rude not to, really.

The first time I ever bought a bottle of absinthe, it cost me over £40… which means it is still the second most expensive bottle I ever bought. It was back in 2000, when (it seemed) people in the UK were first starting to hear about it – a psychedelic alcoholic drink that would make you hallucinate and had caused Van Gogh to sever his ear. How could I resist that? I’ve got two ears…

Another explanation for the Van Gogh thing is that his flatmate, Paul Gauguin put glue on the phone, and then went out and called it. I have no idea if that one’s true. It seems unlikely, since the glue would have to remain sticky for however long it took to get to the phone, and then stick instantly and permanently once Van Gogh put it to his ear.

I had to order a bottle from an advert in Viz magazine, and have it delivered to a friend’s house (I was still living with my parents at the time).

I lived in Rotherham, and my friend in Newcastle, so it was a couple of hours of train journey before I could get my mitts on it. That meant I’d had at least four (possibly six) cans of beer before I got to his house, and it wasn’t many more minutes after that that we were having a joint.

I found out then that these aren’t ideal starting conditions for drinking absinthe. Absinthe is typically around 70% ABV, and we would have been drinking fairly quickly. I soon fell asleep - sitting, with my head on my knees.

That wasn’t the end of the evening though. If a university education taught me anything, it was how to prolong and survive a session. A brief powernap later, and I was compus mentus enough to rejoin the party. Later that night I got lost on the way to the toilet – and not for the last time, but there were definitely no ear-severing incidents. Being drunk in other people’s houses is confusing.

If you check this Wikipedia article, you can see that there’s quite a complicated procedure for drinking absinthe. The booklet that came with the bottle described some variation of the Bohemian Method, saying you should pour a little absinthe over a teaspoon of sugar then set it alight. You would then watch it burn until the sugar caramelises. We had a lot of trouble with that. For one thing, what’s the point in having extra strong alcohol if you’re going to burn some of the alcohol off? Secondly, how do you know when the sugar has caramelised? I still don’t know the answer to that one (or the first one for that matter).

Knowing that the longer we allowed the vapour to burn, the less alcohol would remain on the teaspoon, we soon decided that the sugar had probably caramelised. The next step then, is to tip the contents of the spoon into a glass of absinthe and stir it around. This obviously caused the absinthe in the glass to catch fire, and there were no instructions as to what we should do with this – blow it out? Leave it? Drink it?

I can see now, from the Wikipedia article that you’re supposed to pour a shot of water into the glass to extinguish the flames. That definitely didn’t form part of the instructions we were following. We ended up doing a combination of the first two ideas, before doing the third. None of the sugar had dissolved, which perhaps is the purpose of this whole rigmarole, so we ended up pouring burning sugar granules down our throats.

It’s not entirely pleasant, but I have repeated this ritual a few times since. You can’t really drink absinthe straight because it burns your gullet like crazy. It immediately gives you the alcoholic equivalent of bread chest. The Bohemian method also gets you smashed real quick, because if you do follow those instructions, you feel instantly changed, and ready to party.

I’ll be trying the “French Method” shortly, so keep a look out for my post on that.

Duty Free

If you remember from my preview, I was really looking forward to hitting the duty free. It was something of a disappointment though, when we finally got to it. The booze shops in Ibiza generally are so good and the booze so cheap that duty free really isn’t all that special. Nevertheless, despite being tempted on numerous occasions throughout the holiday (one of my targets, Cutty Sark was selling at 11 euros) I told myself that once I’d gotten the aguardiente de orujo for drinking during the holiday, and bottles of hierbas ibicencas and absinthe for taking home, I would save my booze budget for the duty free.

As I say, it was a little disappointing. I’d been hoping to pick up some special scotch, but there wasn’t all that much in that respect (there was a disproportionate amount of brandy, and I wasn’t in the market for that). They did have a Highland Park, but it wasn’t the 21 years old at 47.5% ABV that I had been hoping to find, instead it was a bottle marked “1998” that had been “bottled exclusively for international travel” and the alcohol content was only 40%. I was still tempted, and at 53 euros it was still within my budget, but the alcohol content put me off, and I didn’t even bother to find out what the 1998 meant – was that when it was bottled? Or was that when it began aging?

When we arrived back in Manchester, and passed through that last duty free shop that you get to before entering arrivals, there was a Highland Park marked “2001”. So further investigation will be necessary for future occasions.

The wrong Dewar's

There was no Cutty Sark, but they did have my other target, Dewar’s 12 Year Old. I hadn’t realised it was a blend, but apparently they age the whisky for a year after it has been blended also, and it was recommended in my whisky book, 101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die. I think that’s the first time I’ve seen an aged blend.

Having checked my book again last night, I’m not actually sure it’s the same one, though. The one in the book has a black label, and says “Special Reserve”. Mine has a blue label, and says, “Double Aged”. Yeah, it looks like I didn’t even get the right one. Goddammit!

It was 35 euros, which has converted to £28 (for a litre), so I’ve got a lot of booze budget left for the future, and I believe this will be the most expensive blended scotch I’ve bought so far, though that only equates to £19.60 for 70cl, which is actually only a little bit more expensive than the Black Grouse.

 The only issue now is that it will be quite a while before I can buy anything else because I’ve got a lot of unfinished bottles and now four unopened ones (my brother-in-law brought a bottle of Maker’s Mark over from Canada with him), so I need to make a bit of headway and at least finish one of my brandies and one of my blended scotches first. There are certainly many adventures to come.

You can find a review of the Dewar’s (the one that I actually bought) here. Perhaps I ought to have read that before I travelled, as it looks like I might have another uninspiring blend to get rid of… a litre of it this time. I probably should have gone for a single malt, but there wasn’t that much to choose from. Well, you never know; I might still like it – Scotchnoob has based his review on a miniature, and I could name many times that I haven’t started to appreciate a whisky until I’m halfway down the bottle, so we’ll see.

Conclusion

Shall we have a conclusion, then? We may as well. The main thing I’d like you to take away from all this is that Spain is an excellent place to go if you’re a booze tourist. The shops are filled with tons of fascinating bottles of various things, and most of them are very reasonably priced. You can drink virtually anywhere, and they produce a lot of their own varieties so there’s plenty you can bring back to impress your friends with. If your friends aren’t impressed, you can gaze at them lovingly, and enjoy a nice drink on your own.

I certainly made sure I sampled a few things this time round, and there’s plenty left over for future visits. I didn’t think about it at the time, but it might be worthwhile seeing if there’s a hierbas ibicencas producer that you can visit. How likely it is I’m ever going to return to Ibiza again is hard to say at this point, but we had such a lovely time that I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.

I hope this has been of some help to you, and if not, at least a little bit interesting. Look out for future Booze Tourism posts, and the follow up on that bottle of absinthe. I’ll see you soon.