Spirit Log: Whyte & Mackay's, The Thirteen

I think I’ll eschew all the over-detailed prevarication for once, and just jump straight in with this one. This is the next Whyte & Mackay blend up from their standard Special expression. Funny how the scotch industry is always calling the most basic expressions special and signature and reserve… it makes it sound like they are the cream of the distillery’s output, when in fact they’re the worst, and could easily put you off trying anything more expensive from the distillery in question.

Anyway, I got massively soaked footing it hotly over to Asda one lunchtime in order to take advantage of a pretty good deal. It was £17.50 for 70cl, and while the label at Asda didn’t indicate that this was any discount on the normal price, all the standard online retailers were selling it at £17.94 (or, in one case £22.57) before P&P. That makes it at least £5 cheaper for a start. According to Bring a Bottle, the price generally tops out at around £23, and has been as low as £17, so for now, this seems like a decent (if not outstanding) pay day deal.

Now, I have tried the Special before, and I remember thinking it was ok, but I also remember using it to add a bit of a kick to my cans of Holsten Pils on occasion – so a pretty standard but decent cheap brand name blend. All I remember of The Thirteen is that it was part of a blind tweet tasting when I was a member of TheManchester Whisky Club, and that everyone was impressed with it. There’s a possibility that some of us thought it was a single malt. It will be interesting then, to see what I think of it now.

Let’s first have a little look at what the rest of the internet thinks about it. The Whisky Exchange introduces it with, “believed by many to be the best value of the range” which isn’t saying much as, excepting the bottom of the range special, the rest of the range costs £150 and up. So it really just has to be better quality and value than the Special to achieve that particular accolade.

The user reviews on TWE are exclusively favourable, but none say anything interesting enough to repeat here – except one that describes the presentation as “masculine” and a welcome change from “French perfums [sic] like bottlings”.

User reviews at the other most useful online supplier, Master of Malt, veer violently from one side to the other. On the negative side we’ve got “for me is just water… almost no taste”, “worst and cheapest 12 years old or more whisky I ever taste”, “made me shudder… barely drinkable”, and “Richard Paterson should be ashamed!”

You might be wondering who Richard Paterson is. I was. He’s Whyte & Mackay’s master blender, and appears to look like a cross between Allo Allo’s Rene and Des Lynam.

On the other side of the fence though, we have “one big surprise… and I was quick to buy another bottle”, “anyone that says this is a poor whisky doesn’t know what they’re talking about”, “Lovely… a great dram”, and, the best of all, “I am from America and all my gay friends love this whisky.”

I’ve read a couple of amateur blogs that have been to Whyte andMackay’s website, and are making a thing out of a so-called “triple maturation process”. One in particular claims that the whiskies are aged in sherry casks for 12 years, before the grain and malt whiskies are then married for a further year. I’ve got to say though, the detail on the website is a little vague. First off it says they choose “the finest aged single malts and and aged grain whiskies from… Highland and Speyside”. The thing to note there is the use of the word “aged”. So these whiskies have already been aged, but for how long?

Next they age the malt whisky (carefully – whatever that means) and separately age the grain whisky (less carefully, it seems), but they don’t tell us how long for. Then these are married in sherry casks. It’s really not enough information, is it?

Then check this; “we’ll let our master blender tell you a bit about how he blends Whyte & Mackays’s Scotch Whisky to get our award-winning smoother, rich taste”, it says. I can’t wait for that. Go ahead, master blender:

“I believe our triple maturation process gives the blend the key to its success – time. Time to harmonise and time to form a perfect union: an ideal partnership.”

And that’s it. What a load of useless bullshit. Triple maturation. Part of that maturation would seem to have been done by the original distillers! At least it does if you can understand English and use that understanding to interpret the words as presented.

This triple maturation is lauded as being unique, but is it? All it is, is taking some malt whisky and blending it, taking some grain whisky and blending it, aging them for a bit, blending them, and then aging them a bit more.

So is it any good? Well, on first opening I was very impressed. This is a touch above the standard blended scotch fare, I thought to myself, as it should be, given that it’s a touch more expensive, too. But… I came to be less impressed over time. My favourite whiskies tend to improve for a few months after you’ve opened them. Low cost blends probably tend to stay about the same. This one started good, then regressed to the level of a standard blended scotch; a little harsh, a little sweet, fine for drinking early in the evening or following closely on the heels of a beer, but not something I’d recommend you pay that bit extra for on a regular basis – or even more than once. It is probably marginally better than the Whyte & Mackay Special overall.

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.

Booze Battle: Dewar's 12 vs Jim McEwan's Symphony

In a slight change to this week’s scheduled post, we have a comparative tasting of two kinds of blended scotch. On the one hand we have Dewar’s 12 year old, “double aged” while on the other it’s Jim McEwan’s Symphony No. 1.

If you’ve been to this blog before, you might be aware that I’ve had the Dewar’s for some time now, having picked up a litre bottle in Duty Free last September. It’s been a bit of a grower. I wouldn’t call it special, but it ain’t bad at all. I’d almost completely finished it, but I decided to hang on to the last dram until I’d procured another blend to compare it with and, thanks to my recent distilgrimage to Islay, I had a contender.

 Jim McEwan’s Symphony No 1 was available in the Bruichladdich distillery shop. Jim is Bruichladdich’s master distiller and is highly respected having worked for 38 years at Bowmore from the age of 15 before moving to Bruichladdich in 2001. I’ve mentioned him on this blog before, way back in the beginning when I was professing a liking for the Bruichladdich Rocks expression. He is probably the first individual I ever heard of in the industry, so I was chomping at the bit to find out what this blend, which is comprised of Islay, Speyside, Highland and Lowland malts, was like. It doesn’t say anything about containing grain whisky in the mix, so I’m not sure what that might mean – because it doesn’t say anything about being a blended malt or vatted malt either.

the symphony

I’ve decided to do things a little differently this time and compare each whisky across a number of categories, just for the sake of variety. In spite of all this, there is only one statistic that really counts, and that is how tasty the whisky is.

The first thing I suppose we should discuss is price. These blends are not equally matched in that respect. The Dewar’s was a Duty Free purchase, and that showed up on my credit card bill at £28.53 for a litre. That’s roughly what you’d be looking to pay in a supermarket for 70cl generally, so it isn’t a cheap blend. I can’t say that it strikes me as much better than your standard Whyte and MacKay Special, but it sure costs about £10+ more.

Jim McEwan’s Symphony no 1 on the other hand comes in at a stunningly wallet-friendly £13 for 70cl. You’ve got to give it a go at that price. In comparison then, you’re getting 5.38cl to the pound with Symphony and only 3.51cl to the pound with the Dewar’s – and that one’s at Duty Free prices.

Price category winner: Jim McEwan’s Symphony No 1

I suppose that while we’re talking price, we should also talk availability. Dewar’s is pretty widely available but as far as I can tell so far, Symphony is only available from the Bruichladdich distillery shop. So while that would potentially make it more sought after, it means you’re looking at a trip to Islay to get hold of a bottle. Not that you would, but if you did go to Islay for the express purpose of buying a bottle of Symphony No 1, that could potentially increase the cost of your purchase from £13 to… well, let’s take the cost of my trip:

Diesel £70

Ferry £80 (for two people and a car – you don’t want to go on your own, do you?)

Accommodation £90

So not including incidental expenses and assuming you live in Manchester, or somewhere £70 in fuel away… you’d be looking at £253. Not such a bargain now, eh? But I’m not going to look at it like that, because my trip was a nice weekend away, and I bought a couple of other bottles anyway – it was more a case of, well, while I’m here, I may as well pick up a bottle of that also…

Since making my purchase, and seeking Symphony out on the internet, I’ve found two auction sites; one where a bottle was sold for £25, and another where the bottle was expected to sell for £75 to £100. Quite astounding, really. It all combines to give Symphony an air of mystique that I hoped it could live up to.

Make your own mind up who wins the availability category. Do you prefer exclusive or readily available? I think it depends. The rarity of Symphony makes me happy because I chose to buy a bottle without knowing anything about it, but if I was you reading this, and I wanted one, I’d find it annoying.

Ok, let’s look at aesthetic considerations:

Does it come in a box? Dewar’s does – 1 point. Yes, bottles are cooler than boxes, but it’s going to come in a bottle anyway, and if your booze cupboard is full, a box gives you further storage options.

Which is the cooler shaped bottle? A tough one, this. Neither is particularly special, but I’m going to award the point to Dewar’s for being a bit stubbier and more robust looking.

Screw-top or cork? Dewar’s is a screw top, but Symphony has a cork, and I think as such, is the first blend I’ve ever owned that has a cork. It definitely gets a point for that.

What about the label? I can’t say I’m a massive fan of that Dewar’s label that has like a cutout section. I’m thinking it would be more at home on a bottle of ale. However, the Symphony label is probably the worst I’ve ever seen. It looks like the cover of one of those £1.99 compilation CDs that you get in Tesco or Wilkinsons. Holy shit; who thought that was a good idea? So… I was tempted not to give any points here, but I suppose it will have to go to Dewar’s.

Aesthetic considerations winner: Dewar’s by 3 points to 1.

Next we have the very important consideration of alcohol content. Dewar’s is a very standard 40%, nothing remarkable there but, wait a minute, what’s this? Symphony is a groin-stirring 46%! I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a blend greater than 43% before. A quick look on The Whisky Exchange confirms that 40% is far more common, though you do get a few blended malts at 46%. Does this suggest Jim McEwan’s Symphony no 1 is a blended malt? Seems highly unlikely at £13 a bottle, but perhaps that’s a reward for making the trip out to Islay. Let’s hope so. I’d like to mention at this point that I did e-mail Bruichladdich to ask for clarification on this issue, and they haven’t replied as yet. I know they must be very busy.

Strength winner: It has to be the Symphony.

So that brings us to the important stuff. Cost and therefore value for money might have some effect on the overall rating but really, it’s all about how good does the whisky taste?

I’m not going to repeat myself too much in regard to the Dewar’s. It was decent, but the presence of grain was as self evident as any of the cheaper blends I’ve tried so far. I doubt I’d spend £25 on a bottle in future. I won’t shy away from trying some of their other expressions though – the Signature is supposed to be excellent I hear, however at £195 at The Whisky Exchange, it must figure way down my list of priorities.

Mostly then, I intend to talk about Jim McEwan’s Symphony No 1.

Ok, to my relatively inexperienced palate, this is quite a unique blend. I’ve tried all the normal ones and one or two of the more obscure ones, but I haven’t tasted a blend like this before. It’s light, playful and well-balanced. I suspect there is some grain in there, but it isn’t as obvious as I have come to expect.

In terms of nose, I’d say there’s white wine vinegar (but not in a bad way), tobacco, marzipan and citrus, while on the palate it’s quite fruity and suggests there may have been some sherry cask aging in there somewhere. There’s also a herby aroma, but I can’t quite identify which one… could be sage, but I think it will take a bit more tasting to be sure.

the symphony

This is very easy drinking, in fact, let’s not beat around the bush; it’s superb – and I never considered adding water even for a second. Why ruin it? I want to say things like ‘for a blend this is superb’ and ‘for £13, this is superb’, but no matter what you prefix it with, it is superb – which is good because it’s ‘super’ with an extra ‘b’. I wish I’d picked up another couple of bottles because it’s cheap enough to drink every day – not that I’m allowed to drink everyday, but I probably would, if left to my own devices. It’s better than that though. I doubt I’ll ever get to buy another bottle of this, but it is going straight to the head of a new list called “buy on sight”. It is actually special enough to keep in the cupboard and pull out for a treat. So I think I may have found it; that special blend that it’s easy to love. Nice one, Jim McEwan; you’ve done it again.

That’s me done for this week, then. If you’ve been in the UK for the last couple of weeks you’ll be aware that it has been drinking weather for a good long while now. We are actually having a summer. Remember it because the last one was seven years ago, and it could be that long before the next one. What this means in the short term is that it’s the weekend and there’s no excuse (aside from being skint) for not getting out and enjoying it. Whether it’s drinks in the garden or out in town, it’s time to get your drink on. Sadly I’ll be spending most of tomorrow in a hot venue listening to heavy music at Sound Control’s Summerjam festival. Ah, but what about Sunday? Sunday afternoon will be spent in various beer gardens, exercising my pint muscles. It’s going to be a good one all round. I hope yours is too. Laters.

Hot Toddies: What? It's Medicinal!

Hot toddies: warm alcoholic drinks that are supposed to be beneficial when you’re feeling unwell. That whole concept is a little alien to me. Not so much that alcohol helps with ailments – even my non-drinking dad kept a bottle of vile tasting Indian brandy in the house for those occasions when I was ill growing up – but more the idea of warm alcoholic drinks. I’ve just never had a warm alcoholic drink I thought was particularly nice, or worth the effort.

I maintain that the best remedy for general illness is a joint. It makes you feel all fuzzy, and you can’t tell any longer whether you feel ill, or whether it’s the effects of the drug so you soon forget about it  and enjoy a day off work, watching DVDs. Unfortunately, this blog isn’t about weed (though I’m sure I could write a good one about that), it’s about booze.

So! After waiting what seemed like forever to get ill, I finally did, and I could get to work on investigating the hot toddy. I hoped the ‘hot’ part of any drinks I tried would turn out to be as simple as boiling the kettle. If it’s all about heating pans of milk and adding ingredients after so many minutes, it’s more like cooking. And drinking shouldn’t be like cooking (especially if you’re feeling unwell) – though it can provide a pleasant accompaniment to cooking. As the old adage goes, “I always cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food!” Ha ha. Actually, I quite liked that when I first saw it.

That’s the problem with cocktails. Deciding which one to make is like deciding what to have for dinner. Then you’ve got to make it. And you might find you’ve run out of a vital ingredient. So you have to pick another one. And it turns out you chose badly; you spent 5 minutes making it, and it’s the tiniest drink in the world. Finished. Now what? Have another one? But I can’t be bothered to make another one. That’s probably why I’ve drifted away from cocktail experimentation recently.

Where was I? Oh yes, finally I had gotten ill, and was excited about the opportunity to try some hot alcoholic drinks in the spirit with which they are intended. First though, my mum offered the advice that I should have a brandy and two paracetamol before I went to bed. That’s the kind of doctor’s orders I like!

“Have you got any brandy?” she asked.

“Yeah, but not any particularly nice brandy. Does it have to be brandy, or will anything of that genre do?”

“Whisky doesn’t work.” Though I don’t see why it shouldn’t.

“Oh.”

So cheap brandy it was; the Osborne’s 103 brandy de Jerez that I’d been failing to finish off for several years. Did it help? Well, I had an incredibly deep sleep, but that could have been due to the fact that I scarcely got any sleep at all the night before that.

I had a mad dream too, but dreams are supposed to be mad, aren’t they? When people say, “I had a really weird dream…” Of course you did; it was a dream.

So did it help? I suppose it did.

I tried having a whisky the next night, and I don’t actually recall whether it did me any good – I think I forgot to take the paracetomol. What I did notice was that I couldn’t taste anything, so it was a complete waste of one of my better whiskies. So it transpires that it was a good job I didn’t have any decent brandy, since it would have been a waste to drink that, too.

A particular barrier to enjoying your strong alcohol can be that your nasal passages might be completely blocked. Obviously the senses of smell and taste are connected, so you’re only getting half of the package. On top of that, you don’t get the chance to roll your liquor around and hold it in your mouth because at some point you have to take a breath, and you end up inhaling hot alcohol fumes into your fragile oesophagus. It’s just not as enjoyable. Having said that, you can at least enjoy the alcohol buzz that comes with drinking spirits a bit quicker – and that’s why the cheaper ones are so useful. It is always worth keeping something around for these occasions.

Getting a bit off-topic here, but I did get round to trying some hot toddies – pretty simple ones. First I tried an Irish Coffee, in which I used Whyte and MacKay scotch because I didn’t have any Irish whisky. I completely failed at floating the cream on the top. I’m going to have to learn that skill, one of these days. That’s all aesthetic anyway, since I think you tend to stir the cream into the coffee once it’s served.

The recipe I had said to use one and a half ounces of whisky, but for some reason (I must have been ill), I confused half measures with full measures, so I actually added three ounces of whisky by mistake. I have to say; I wasn’t enjoying it. I also had to add a lot more brown sugar than the single teaspoon recommended. I even had to add a couple of teaspoons of white sugar, too. I like my coffee sweet, but I still wasn’t able to finish the drink.

A better alternative that I discovered much later, is just to make an ordinary coffee (from a coffee maker is best), and make it exactly the way you normally like your coffee, but with the milk replaced by Irish Cream – unless you like your coffee black! What’cha gonna do then? I used the Irish Meadow (14.5% ABV), which is Tesco’s (very cheap) alternative to Baileys, and it went down a treat.

My first attempt though, the Irish Coffee, was something of a failure.

For my second hot toddy I tried Soco Spicy Cocoa, found on the Southern Comfort website. You basically make a cup of cocoa, add one and a half ounces of Southern Comfort and top with a pinch of cayenne pepper. Once again, I got my quantities mixed up, and added three measures of Southern Comfort. I think this drink was a little more successful, but I still failed to finish it. This only seems to confirm what I already suspected: hot toddies aren’t for me. I just don’t get hot alcoholic drinks.

I went on to try inventing a hot toddy  – adding a couple of shots of Tesco Value Brandy to a cup of hot Oxo, with garlic powder and salt and pepper – but I don’t think it’s going to catch on. Maybe I need to use less brandy, but then; what’s the point?

I asked Mrs Cake what the big idea was – why people espouse the merits of hot toddies when they’re feeling unwell. She said it was the process of being drunk, but I said you can do that with cold alcoholic drinks. She said the heat makes people feel cosy. But strong alcohol already does that!

So I guess that’s it – alcohol can make you feel a bit better when you’re sick, but drinking a nice spirit is a bit of a waste, so just put something strong in a hot drink. If you don’t like the taste like me, use it as an opportunity to dip into one of your less favoured bottles.

There is one more hot toddy I’d like to try, because it actually sounds nice. If that doesn’t work though, I’m just going to drink some cheap brandy. Then I can replace it and try a different one.

That's it for this week, then. Join me next week, when I might be returning to the theme of hot toddies, or I might be talking about something else. Either way, it's not to be missed.

Summer has hit the M to the C to the R good and proper today (for like, the first time in 7 years), so I'm sure everyone will be out in the beer gardens and barbequeing (sp?) and all that this weekend. I'll be out and about, and hopefully getting to the Chorlton Beer Festival tomorrow. I didn't even realise it was this weekend. Whatever you're up to, have a good un, and try to stay out of trouble. Also, spare a thought for all the people who are out drinking every weekend, whose peace, quiet and beer gardens you're ruining by turning out now it's nice. All right? Cool.

You can even taste whisky on the internet...

Good evening everybody. It’s a rare Thursday post for me this week, since tomorrow I’m hoping to be heading to a secluded cottage in North Wales straight after work (weather permitting), so there won’t be time for any of this blogging nonsense – just time to pick up a bag and grab a few bottles of hooch to keep the missus and I warm.

Shall we get on with it then? This week’s post is a collection of a few random and some specific thoughts in relation to the Manchester Whisky Club’s recent online twitter tasting. Here we go.

Prior to the first physical meeting of the newly formed Manchester Whisky Club (due later this month), we first had a Thursday night Twitter tasting. Thursday is the new Friday, and indeed a great time to drink whisky - hey! It's Thursday tonight! Excuse me... [squeeeeak, pop, pour, sniff, sip, aaaaah!] 

Club founder Andy had already provided each member with two mystery drams that had arrived in the post, all mummified in bubblewrap and sellotape, and finally, after about 2 months of them sitting there in my booze cupboard, it was time to take them out and put them in glasses. Exciting times.

This would actually be my first ever whisky tasting of any kind – other than those that have just been me, in my house, tasting whiskies, occasionally with one or two friends there – and an excellent chance to get some kind of impression of what the club and its members would be like – not to mention finally finding out what this whole Twitter jobbie was all about.

You may remember in my earlier Manchester WhiskyClub post that I was wondering if there would be any female members. Well, there are. I have to admit to being a little surprised – pleasantly, I might add. No, I’m not looking for any [happily married, thanks for asking, and there’s only room for one whisky drinker in my house], but it’s a relief that this pursuit isn’t going to be one of those things that only men do – like golf. You see women playing golf, but you can’t help thinking; why are they playing golf? Not that they shouldn’t – in spite of what some of my friends might say. No, it’s just a bit weird.

There weren’t too many members joining us for the tasting (I’m not going to check, but I think it was 6-9), but I’m going to say it was a successful first event. I’m sure everyone had a lot of fun, and I think Andy has got to be optimistic about how this whole thing is going to pan out. It was a nice group of people, and I’m sure everyone enjoyed it.

What happened then, was that we all gathered around our computers with our tasting glasses, logged into Twitter just before 7pm, and waited for it to begin. I poured both of my samples into glasses at the same time, just to let those aromas develop a little.

I got my Dulux colour cards out ahead of time, and tried to see if I could find a match for each sample. Sample 1 was very pale, and mapped very tidily to ‘Desert Island 4’, while sample 2, easily the darker of the two, turned out to be one of the few shades Dulux haven’t mastered yet. There are no photos to show you of that, but if it doesn’t make sense, check this earlier post for a bit of context.

After a brief welcome then, we got started on the nosing of sample 1. Being hopeless at nosing, I wasn’t able to identify any smells in particular, but everyone else had a damn good go, and I found it quite educational, just seeing what they had to say.

I think I moved on to the actual tasting way ahead of everyone else, but whaddayagonna do? I was ready. There was something very familiar about it that I couldn’t quite place. It was soft, oily and mouthcoating – very classy, but perhaps one that I might not have appreciated fully in the past. Light and summery, I believe was the consensus among the other members.

All my impressions soon made sense when its identity was revealed; Speyside’s anCnoc 12 year old. I had had it before; I remember Mrs Cake buying me a bottle one Saturday when I was in a foul mood. I think we’d had a disagreement, and she was trying to cheer me up. It’s not related, of course, but it was the same day she bought her dad a bottle of Ledaig 10 year old. She took it to Canada for him, where he had one taste and decided he didn’t like it, before sending it back with her for me. I thought it was delicious.

I couldn’t recall being so fond of the anCnoc on previous occasions, but it was well over a year ago, and it’s only just over a year ago that I stopped putting ice in my whisky. This is definitely one to get again some time.

We spent half an hour on the first dram. I was finished well in advance, and couldn’t wait to get started on number 2. On nosing it struck me as being quite complex, but I couldn’t detect anything in particular. While the others participants showed me up with mentions of vanilla, caramel and spice, I got into the tasting.

Salty at first, I found that it developed as I allowed it to sit on my tongue before finishing with a touch of (not unpleasant) bitterness at the end. Very different to the first, but in my opinion no worse for it. I couldn’t actually decide which I preferred (possibly the 1st, but I’d need a few more tastes to be sure).

On the reveal I learned something that I’d been meaning to test for some time – that I can’t necessarily tell a blend from a single malt. I always thought it would be easy due to the bitter grain taste – which perhaps explains the slight bitterness on the finish of this 2nd dram. However, the bitterness was not even out of the ordinary for some single malts, and the complexity and smoothness was unlike any blend I’ve found up to now. There were also reports that a drop of water would eliminate the bitterness, but I wasn’t really bothered about trying that.

This 2nd sample then was the 13 year old Whyte and Mackay which should retail around £20. That’s damn good value. It actually reminded me of the 12 year old Balvenie, though I was pretty sure it wasn’t that, as I actually liked the sample immediately.

Yeah, I’m struggling to get into that Balvenie. I kind of feel it’s like a puzzle that I have to solve, and for that reason, if I don’t know which of my whiskies to dip into on any occasion, that’s the one I’ve been going for.

Whisky probably shouldn’t be like a puzzle, should it? You should just be able to enjoy it. Puzzles are good too though – as long as you can solve them. Otherwise they leave you with feelings of inadequacy. I don’t think it’s as important to get the Balvenie as it would be to be able to finish a Sudoku puzzle though. My feeling on Sudoku is always, what’s the point, why don’t you just read a book? But I’d really want to be able to finish one if I ever started one in the first place.

Come to think of it, I did start one once, but just decided it was stupid before I wasted too much time on it. I ask you; putting numbers in boxes. Tsk.

Once again, time will tell and presumably, thanks to joining the Manchester Whisky Club, tastes will develop. I’ve got a lot of tastings to attend over the next 12 months, so as ever, I’ll keep you posted.

So that’s it for now. Check back next week, when I’m planning to return to the subject of distilled pomace, and describing what happened when I tasted a budget grappa alongside a very cheap orujo. Not to be missed, I’m sure.

Have a great weekend, and don’t forget you can now follow me on Twitter - @alcothusiast.

Laters.  

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.