Aldi vs Lidl: Beer Edition!

some of Aldi's Oktoberfest themed beers

I’ve been comparing the two major budget supermarkets on their quality of spirits for some time now, and I just realised that (once again, thanks to The Distinct Beers Challenge) I’ve enough experience to compare them on the quality of their beers, too. Both outlets have exclusive brands, and both get in their fair share of guest and seasonal beers, so if that isn’t a reason to keep drinking, I don’t know what is.

Now, I’ve been shopping at Aldi for a lot longer than I’ve been visiting Lidl, and while at first I thought I would I just need to make a couple more visits to Lidl before we’re on level terms beerwise, it hasn’t turned out that way. Lidl’s turnover of beers has tailed off while Aldi’s has positively gone through the roof – first with a selection of 5 or 6 German beers for Oktoberfest, and then a whole new range of 10 or 11 British beers… for what seems like no reason at all! Hooray for Aldi. Sadly it makes it difficult to compare the two brands beer for beer right up to the present day. At first I thought that maybe I could draw a line under an equal number of beers and then do a part 2 after Lidl have added a few more. In all fairness, that doesn’t sound very interesting to me, and it makes it hard to draw any overall conclusions. This no doubt will be a topic I return to frequently, but I think it will be better all round if we just take more of an overview and see where that gets us.

first ever beer shop at Lidl

Anyway, I intend to compare the beers then, on four categories:

Exclusive brands – the cheap made for Aldi/Lidl stuff you find, including the low alcohol and shit cans. This can be a tricky one because some of the exclusive brands are trying very hard not to look like exclusive dirt market brands. A lot of them are made by actual brands anyway as well, so I’m just going to have to make a number of decisions and stick to them. If you don’t agree with any of my decisions, you have all of the comments section to stick your oar in.

British guests – the kind of large bottled ales you get, that mostly seem to be around 4%. And anything else British of course!

Foreign guests – probably cheaply imported from Germany and Belgium, but foreign nevertheless and possibly premium.

Seasonal gimmicks – those beers they get in at Christmas (usually with cartoony labels) or Halloween (usually pumpkin flavoured) or around Burns Night (Scottish).

The first task was to comb through all my previous Untappd check-ins and try to remember which beers I’d bought from either of these two dirt market giants. Next, a bit of classification and analysis, and finally, piece together some kind of narrative – perhaps with a bit more tasting inbetween.

So I’ve done that analysis now and I’m going to have to find a place to start. How about…

Exclusive brands

Yes, so these are the ones that you’re only going to find at the supermarket in question. Even these can be split into a number of categories, so it’s not destined to be simple. For one thing I’ve identified no less than 23 exclusive brands (probably even more since I wrote that sentence) between the two supermarkets in the two and a half years since I started logging on Untappd.

looks like shit Heineken

First off you have the shit Euro-lagers. At Aldi you’ve got Sainte Etienne (2.5/5) which is generally in cans, and the slightly more special bottled Sainte Etienne Premium (which I’ve actually scored lower than the standard one; 2/5), while at Lidl you’ve got Excelsior (3.9%, 1/5) in cans, and in bottles, Perlenbacher Premium Pils (4.9%, 2.5/5). The canned ones are packaged to look like shit beer, the Sainte Etienne Premium to look like shit bottled beer, and the Perlenbacher to look like Heineken – and hence, like shit bottled beer. You can see from the scores that none of them are anything to write a blog about. In their favour is that they are cheaper than comparably shit branded beers. I don’t want to talk about these particular products too much just now, because I have another post in the pipeline where I directly compare own brand supermarket beers. So most of the content is going to be in that one. For now you can see there’s little to choose between the supermarkets in this category.

But what of the other exclusive brands I alluded to?

Well, Aldi go a step further with their exclusive foreign ales, branching out into a German weissbier, Rheinbacher (5%, 2.5/5) and what looks like a Spanish style lager, Carista (4.6%, 2.5/5). Neither are anything to get excited about.

And that brings us to the many exclusive British beers. So far I’ve counted 9 at Aldi and 7 at Lidl. All, with the exception of Aldi’s Golden Crown (4.1%, 2.5/5) are identifiably brewed by reputable British breweries. Interestingly, many of the breweries have made beer for both supermarkets, so that adds an extra dimension to our investigation.

Lidl seemed to be the first of the two supermarkets to offer its own “craft” beer range. I put “craft” in speech marks like that because… well they aren’t exactly premium. They come in standard 500ml bottles with cheap but consistent labels. And by ‘cheap’ I mean the paper quality is very poor. To give a small brewery aesthetic, they are allocated numbers – No. 1, No.2 etc, in addition to their various quirky names. All are in reality produced by reputable large scale breweries, though Lidl appear to have attempted pull the wool over our eyes by pretending they are brewed by a company called Hatherwood Craft Beer Company. Here’s a brief summary of how I’ve scored them and what I’ve thought of them as far as I can remember.

The Golden Goose (3.8%, 3/5) by Wychwood, famously the fathers of Hobgoblin. This one’s a golden ale, and neither better nor worse than standard fare.

The Green Gecko IPA (5%, 3/5) by Marston’s. A good ABV for your small financial outlay on this one. The score of 3 out of 5 of course denotes that it does the job but is nothing special.

The Amber Adder (4.3%, 3/5) is also by Marston’s and also receives and average 3 out of 5. It is described as a “red ale”, so I’m not quite sure why it’s called “amber”. Amber is orangey – right?

The Ruby Rooster (a brown ale – there seems to be some confusion over colours among these beers; 3.8%, 2.5/5) is by Ringwood Brewery and scores below average. A score of 2.5 represents not particularly nice, but nothing terrible about it.

The Purple Panther (5%, 4/5) is the jewel in the “Hatherwood” crown (strong, cheap and good), and is a porter.

The Winter Warmer (5.5%, 1/5) could be classed as a seasonal beer, but I think its exclusive status supercedes that. It is brewed by Hogs Back Brewery and as you can see from the score, is awful. Part of that has to be down to the fact that seasonal spiced beers are not my thing at all, but only a very small part. Don’t be fooled into thinking this isn’t awful.

Finally we have Gnarly Fox (4.5%, 3/5), a lager brewed by Wychwood. I always buy the Wychwood beers because they are nicely branded and identifiable – in that when you see one, if you’ve paid the slightest bit of attention, you can remember whether you’ve already tried it or not. Sadly, as I’ve tried more of them, it appears Hobgoblin is the only one of any worth. The brewery’s two Lidl offerings are nothing to get excited about either.

Now, Aldi have clearly taken note of this Hatherwood ploy and decided to get in with their own professionally brewed, exclusive range. The labels are of the same cheap paper (though the designs are far more interesting), but they haven’t tried to fool you or I (the great British beer buying public) into thinking a patsy brewery has made them all. Some of them are credited to Harper’s Brewing Company, while the rest make no bones about the actual breweries that are responsible for them. However, and again they differ from Lidl a bit here, they all state “brewed exclusively for Aldi” on the label. These all hit the shelves at the same time, so it was quite a cheap month of at home drinking for me (excepting releases of Cloudwater’s DIPA versions 8 and 9), and made for an exciting day at the Eden Square shopping complex. Let’s have a bit of a rundown. I’ll start with the large bottles and finish with the smaller ones, because yes, I neglected to mention that Aldi have gone one better than their rival and offer a range of 330ml bottles as well as 500ml ones. I entered some comments about some of these on Untappd, which I’ll include for you here.

hit the jackpot at Aldi one weekend

North Bridge Brown Ale (4.7%, 3/5) – a so-so attempt at Newcy Brown, brewed by Marston’s. That’s right, it’s not a patch on the real thing, but it’s not a bad cheap approximation. It’s half a point better than Lidl’s comparable Ruby Rooster.

Golden Crown (4.1%, 2.5/5). As you can well imagine, this is an attempt at a pretty standard golden ale. That’s never really been my genre, so the 2.5/5 tells you Aldi have pretty much hit the target. No specific brewer has been identified as creating this one. On Untappd I said, this new aldi range looks the part, but so far they aren’t quite up to snuff, which isn’t a turn of phrase I’d normally use, but there you go.

Medusa (5%, 3.5/5). Apparently brewed by Marston’s, this one, though it is labeled “Harper’s Breweing Co.” As I say, I think this is the equivalent of Lidl’s Hatherwood. Anyway, this is a red ale, and one of the better scorers. I wasn’t able to use the Untappd barcode scanner, and it was very hard to find it on the app.

Amber Stone (4.4%, 3/5). I haven’t been able to find out who the brewer is for this one. It’s credited to “Harper’s” and is apparently “contract brewed”. I got a 2 year anniversary badge on Untappd for logging this one, which seemed odd because I’d actually joined Untappd two and a half years previously.

Wild Bill’s IPA (5%, 3/5). Another collaboration with Marston’s. At the time I stated, Pleasant at first, but soon changing to a burnt taste as the bitterness sets in. Still one of the best of these new Aldi offerings.

Land of Liberty (5%, 3/5). The first of the small bottles is billed as an American IPA and is made by Sadlers. I said, a bit fusty on entry, then pleasant citrus followed by too much bitterness.

All 4 One (4.5%, 3.5/5). A collaboration with Hogs Back Brewery, this one is an amber lager. No comments, but it scores pretty well.

Sunny Dayz (3.8%, 2/5). Late November is an odd time to release a summer themed golden ale, but that’s what Aldi have done with this second Hogs Back collaboration. I said, something not quite right – like, a bit stale about this one.

Red Rye IPA (4.7%, 4/5) – a good one from Aldi – and Twickenham Fine Ales. Indeed, the joint top scorer in this category along with Lidl’s Purple Panther. I think it would be worthwhile to buy 8 of these and keep them in stock for when I need to buy beers but can’t find any I want in the local supermarkets. If only the bottle was a little bigger…

Spill the Beans (4.4%, 3.75/5). A coffee porter from Brains that I’ve dubbed pretty good.

So what can we conclude in the exclusive British beers category? Well, for one thing there’s nothing particularly outstanding, but at least there is a good selection out there – and if you’re not fussy about quality you certainly can’t argue with the price. Some of them really are comparable to what I would classify as sub-standard established beers. In terms of comparison between the supermarkets, let’s just go on average scores.

Aldi racked up 10 beers, scoring 31.25. That’s an average of 3.125 per beer, which isn’t bad. I’m not going to go out of my way to prove it, but I reckon that’s probably a better average than all the beers on the shelves at a standard supermarket. Mind you, that would be a purely subjective conclusion.

Lidl on the other hand racked up only 7 beers, scoring 19.5 points. I need my calculator for this one; it’s an average of 2.786. That’s a little off the pace, and gives Aldi the edge.

British guests

Time now to move on to the British Guests category. In this one I’ll be judging the two retailers on the quality of branded beer that they get in from time to time. In terms of quantity it’s a little one-sided at the moment, with Aldi having 16 examples and Lidl only 8. Nevertheless, I think it’s enough to go on.

On first glance you’re seeing a lot of the same brewers from the respective exclusive ranges – Brains, Marston’s, Wychwood – but you also get the likes of Sadlers (the dirt market king – being available as they are also in B&M Bargains and Quality Save), Shepherd Neame, Robinson’s and Joseph Holt. You also get one or two weird ones like Williams Brothers’ Fraoch Heather Ale at Aldi.

I don’t want to go into too much detail here, as you will be familiar with some of these beers anyway, and otherwise I haven’t got much specific to say about them anyway. Instead I’ll give you a list of beers by retailer and their scores out of 5.

Aldi first –

Two Tribes by Everards Brewery, 3.5/5

Castle by Arundel Brewery, 4/5

Sadler’s Hop Bomb, 4/5

Sadler’s Mellow Yellow, 2/5

The Rev James Rye by Brains, 3.5/5

Strongarm Ruby Red Ale by Camerons, 2/5

Wells Bombardier Glorious English, 4/5

Brains SA, 2.5/5

McEwan’s Export, 2.5/5

Wainwright Golden Ale by Marston’s, 3.5/5

Hobgoblin, 4/5

Hobgoblin Gold, 3/5

Fraoch Heather Ale by Williams Brothers, 3.5/5

Golden Bolt by Box Steam Brewery, 3.75/5

A-hop-alypse Now by Camerons, 3.5/5

Maple Gold by Joseph Holt, 3/5

That’s a total score of 52.25 to be divided by 16, leaving an average of 3.266. Again, not bad.

Lidl British guests

Lidl then –

Hobby Horse by Rhymney Brewey, 3/5

British euro-style lager

Butcombe Gold, 2/5

Tapping the Admiral by Shepherd Neame, 4/5

Ginger Beard by Wychwood, 1/5

Unicorn Black by Robinson’s 3/5

Brains SA Gold, 3.5/5

Korev by St Austell Brewery, 3/5

Summer Sizzler by Shepherd Neame, 1.5/5

I think we can see it doesn’t look great for Lidl at this point. Let’s see, it’s a total of 21 to be divided by 8, leaving a paltry 2.625.

That’s interesting though. It shows that Aldi is better on both British exclusive and British guest categories, but it also shows that Aldi’s guest are marginally better than its exclusives while Lidl’s exclusives are marginally better than its guests. I think that’s quite useful. Take note of that.

Foreign guests

I’m afraid there isn’t much to compare in this category so far, since Aldi are quite prolific in their delvings into the European market, while the few times I’ve visited Lidl have only yielded two foreign guests. Those two were Blanche de Namur, a Belgian wheat beer and Bornem Blond, a Belgian blonde ale. They both looked the part, but sadly they didn’t taste it, scoring 2 and 1.5 out of 5 respectively.

Aldi are giants in this field though. I mentioned earlier in the post how they got in 5 or 6 authentic German beers for Oktoberfest, which routinely scored between 3.5 and 4 out of 5. From time to time they also have beers from French brewer, Les Brasseurs de Gayant. La Goudale Biere de Abbage (3.75/5)and La Goudale Witt (4/5) are good examples, while the gluten free Grain d’Orge Bio Sans Gluten was fucking awful (1/5).

Then there was alternative Spanish lager Ambar Especial. There’s a funny story about this one. An acquaintance was in Zaragoza and posted a picture of a local beer that he favoured over San Miguel and Cruzcampo and the like. He mentioned how it wasn’t available in the UK yet. It was funny because that very day I’d seen it in our local Aldi, and I think it was only 99p per bottle. Next time I went in I took a picture for him, and later, on his return home, he went straight out and bought what looked to be the stock for one whole store. Anyway, I only scored it 3.5, which isn’t bad.

Seasonal gimmicks

Ok, final section now before I start wrapping this up. It’s a fairly inconclusive one though, to be honest. I’ve only had the pleasure of trying one seasonal gimmick from Lidl so far – Shepherd Neame’s Burns Ale which I scored 2.5/5. Aldi have been getting all sorts in over the years though – Christmas themed ales like Reigndeer from Sadlers (3/5), Redbreast by Jennings (3/5), Yule Love it! By Thwaites (3.5/5), Rocking Rudolph by Greene King (3/5) and Wychwood’s Bah Humbug (3/5). They also embrace Burns Night (Blackwolf Brewery’s Rabbie Burns, 3.5/5) and Halloween (Wychwood’s Dunkel Fester).

Anyway, these kind of beers aren’t really my kind of thing. I only buy them because it’s more or less a guaranteed distinct beer to add to my log. So I’m not going to compare across this genre – for now anyway.

Conclusions

So which of the two budget supermarkets should you go to to fulfil your beer needs? I think it’s plain to see that Aldi is the choice for me. If Lidl is a lot more convenient for you, it has offerings that are worth a try, but Lidl consistently has the greater range, and it changes fairly regularly. Not only that, but the most important thing, the quality, is just that bit better. I’m not consistently buying by beers from Aldi just at the moment (do I do pick up anything distinct that comes in), but there’s certainly a case for doing so in preference to the mainstream supermarkets. Sure, the mainstream supermarkets have the range and they have the offers, but Aldi has great prices and solid alternatives that if you’re like me, you might find a little less depressing than the choices you have to make at Tesco or Sainsburys (or Asda or Morrison’s. You guys don’t escape my ire either).

Over to you now. Please tell me about your favourite supermarket beers in the comments, and join me next week when I’ll be talking about something else, which I think will be a revisit of the standard Wild Turkey Kentucky Bourbon, but which, as ever, is subject to change if I haven’t written enough of it. See you then.

Highland Black 8 vs the World... of Blended Scotch

This week’s post unites a few themes from previous months – Aldi vs Lidl and  The Standard Supermarket Blend Test spring most readily to mind – so let me fill you in on what’s going on. Many years ago, when I had less money and I hadn’t become interested in spirits yet, I used to buy the occasional bottle of Highland Black 8 blended scotch from Aldi. I believe it was £8.99 the first time. I couldn’t even afford to buy one every month at that point – or I didn’t place enough importance on purchase of spirits to do so (I was going out far more often, to be fair… and buying other…things) – but I’d try to add a bottle to the shopping from time to time, which I would enjoy over ice when I could.

Time went by and in a round about way, those bottles of Highland Black, via a bottle of Wild Turkey 101, led to an interest in spirits. I think I started telling people I liked whisky, and my sister may have started buying me a bottle for Christmas… anyway, the details more or less escape me now. The point is, I’ve tried so many different whiskies now, that I had started to wonder what I would think of the Highland Black if I ever tried it again. Now I’ve finally decided to find out by conducting a series of versus experiments. I will be comparing it, one at a time with some blended whiskies of a similar class, and one or two that I just happen to have in, for a bit of variety. Let’s briefly meet our cast of characters

Highland Black 8

8 years old, bottled exclusively for Aldi, no further meaningful information available… it looks the part at least. Kind of. I really wanted to include this in the aforementioned supermarket test, but it fell outside the criteria – which, if you remember were that it had to be available in 35cl and classifiable as “standard”. It doesn’t come in a half size bottle, and its proudly displayed “8 years”, pushes it up a category above standard. This time I paid £12.99 for 70cl.

Bushmills Original

Stepping outside of the realm of blended scotch for a minute, we come to what I would consider equivalent in an Irish blend. I’d been saving the last little bit for this experiment. It was £16 (for 70cl) when I bought it.

McKendrick’s

The winner of the aforementioned Standard Supermarket Blend Test. This is the second time then, that I’ve bought this particular blend, and it’s a pleasure to have it back to see how it stacks up against some different competition. It has increased in price since the last time I bought it, by 25p to £6.75 for the 35cl.

Bells

I consider this to be the standard blend that all supermarket blends are based on, and that everyone has surely tried – if you haven’t tried Bell’s, your whisky education can never be complete. Found, it seems in every pub, newsagent, working men’s club, supermarket and duty free shop in the world, I haven’t tried it since well before starting this blog – before getting into spirits – so I’m very keen to find out what I think of it now. It was £12 for 70cl and is apparently blended from Caol Ila, Glenkinchie, Blair Athol, Dufftown and Inchgower malts – among many others no doubt, as well as a bunch of grain whiskies. Why those five malts are singled out I don’t know.

It receives generally positive reviews on TWE – except this one; “This just left me wondering how they got the cat to squat on the bottle.”

And this one, “Bells is great, if you were planning on committing suicide and had nothing else to drink. Even then you would wish your last drink had been a good one!There is no satisfaction when you drink it (other that the extra cash you have in your back pocket).”

It seems though that people seem to think it has improved over the past several years – since I tried it last, probably.

MoM reviews on the other hand are mostly negative, with one reviewer blaming it for his dad’s sneezing. Someone else mentioned sneezing, but not as a bad thing. “Better than no scotch” says another. Others are far less kind.

A lot of people ask why this is the most popular blend in the UK. I would suggest it’s because it’s pretty much the cheapest name brand. I don’t think people quite trust supermarket own brands, so they just go with Bell’s because it is well known – I mean, why do young people drink Foster’s? Exactly.

I ended up opening the Bell’s before the start of the contest. I had developed a cold by the weekend in question, so real tasting was to be out of the question. I still needed to drink something, so I thought I’d go for this. I have to say, I may not have been in full possession of my tasting faculties, but the Bell’s went down very well indeed. It’s sweet and full of flavour, gives good fumes and manages to avoid any of that burning  roughness that I generally associate with blends at the low to low-mid end of the pricing spectrum. It’s uncomplicated but not lacking in complexity – a whisky you can enjoy frequently.

My friend Phil, who was joining me actually guessed it was a Highland Park, but he hadn’t tasted any whisky for a good few months, and I hadn’t given him any clue as to what genre of whisky I was giving him.

Anyway, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There are still some more blends to introduce you to…

Kenmore

Like the Highland Black, I had wanted to be able to include Marks and Spencer’s slightly above basic blend in the Standard Supermarket Blend Test, but it had to be excluded because of it’s 5 year old age statement. There is a proper basic one with no age statement, but last time I didn’t get it because they don’t do a half bottle, and this time I didn’t get it because the Kenmore fits better alongside Aldi’s aged product. It retailed at the time at £16, but my voucher made it £12. It is tastefully presented, but is unusual in that it lists all the ingredients used in its production – including that of caramel for colouring.

Queen Margot 5

Not being a regular at Lidl, I was expecting to bring home a standard Queen Margot, but it turns out they do a 5 year old for £12.89, so I had to get that. Then, the next day, I learned there’s even an 8 year old, though I didn’t see it when I was there. I started thinking I’d have to take the 5 year old back and exchange it, but then I started imagining it all going wrong – like maybe they wouldn’t have it and I’d try to leave the store without anything, and security would stop me, and I’d be like, “I was going to swap this, but you didn’t have the thing I was going to swap it for. Look I have the receipt”, but the receipt was 2 days old and security would be like, “just cos you bought one the other day doesn’t mean you weren’t trying to steal this one today”, and it would be very embarrassing because the shop would be all full of students getting their cheap food in and I would have been embarrassed about trying to swap it at the checkout anyway. The queue was way beyond the booze aisle when I bought it in the first place, and I’d have to join the queue with nothing, just to get a chance to see if they had the 8 year old at all. It’s kind of embarrassing, buying booze in Lidl, in front of students, at my age.

So in the end I decided I’d stick with the 5 year old. It was roughly the same price as Aldi’s Highland Black anyway, so it is still comparable.

Ballatine’s 12

A bit fancier, this one. We should really expect this one to stand apart with ease given that it’s just on the verge of what I’d called the premium blend category. I bought it in duty free, where it was £29.48 for a litre (converted from euros).

Hankey Bannister Original

A very late entry to the competition, thanks to the generosity of my friend David who picked this up from Duty Free in Egypt. I know I’d heard of it before through one of the many blogs I’ve perused over the last few years, but I didn’t know anything about it. It’s a standard 40% ABV, and the limited information on the bottle is concerned with a legacy of “being enjoyed in society for over 250 years”. Something about the website (www.hankeybannister.com) – images of a top hat and a pocket watch – and the way they mention royal seals of approval from Prince Regent William iv to George v suggest they are referring to high society rather than that to which we all belong.

Let’s finish this introduction by ranking each competitor on price per cl – with the exception of Hankey Bannister, which I didn’t buy:

1.       Ballantine’s 12 – somewhat unsurprising that this should be the priciest. It comes in at 29.48p per centilitre (from Duty Free).

2.       Bushmills Original - 22.86p per centilitre, though I seem to recall there was £4 off at Asda.

3.       McKendrick’s – 18.57p per centilitre, making it just 0.01p more expensive than…

4.       Highland Black 8 – 18.56p per centilitre.

5.       Queen Margot 5 – marginally cheaper than the focus of this piece at 18.41p per centilitre.

6.       Kenmore 5 – only 17.14p/cl this one, though that’s because I had a £4 voucher. Otherwise it would be the same as the Bushmills.

7.       Bell’s – also at 17.14p per centilitre, but on this occasion it was at £3 off at Asda.

So now that everyone’s had a bit of an introduction, we can move on to the contest. The point of this exercise isn’t to find out who is the best overall – though I’m sure we’ll inevitably come to that conclusion – but to determine how Aldi’s Highland Black stacks up against products of a [mostly] similar class. For that reason, the experiment will be conducted as a series of Highland Black versus… tests. We may find out very early on where it stacks up against other brands without having to carry out a specific test, but we shall determine that when we come to it.

Test 1 – Highland Black vs Bushmills Original

This ended up being the first test because Bushmills was the blend I’d had open for the longest. There was about a double left in the bottle that, until deciding to do this post, I’d been saving to soup up a disappointing can of lager.

Let’s see then; in the glass these are almost identical in colour, with the Highland Black possibly being slightly darker. On the nose, the Bushmills is sweet, while the HB is very rough. Based on that, I’m inclined to worry about drinking a full bottle of Aldi’s finest, but let’s get onto the tasting anyway…

On the palate, the Bushmills is buttery with a hint of bran. It is sweet and quite pleasant. HB on the other hand is light and reminiscent of a personal favourite, Ballantine’s Finest, though it doesn’t follow this good initial impression with much. It seems rough and it burns a little, but it does give good fumes.

Luckily, as the tasting progressed, the HB began to grow on me, until ultimately, there wasn’t enough in it so I had to call it a draw – and that means Aldi wins because it is cheaper.

Test 2 – Highland Black vs Ballantine’s 12 year old

The contents of the Ballantine’s 12 are starting to wane also, so while this is easily the most expensive bottle in the test and should easily outperform the HB, it still needed to prove itself in the heat of competition. I have been enjoying the Ballantine’s, as you’ll know from my earlier post, though I haven’t been convinced it is as good as its cheaper and younger brother. Let’s see how it fares against Aldi’s blend…

The HB is grainy on the nose, in contrast to Ballantine’s malty sweetness, though  on the palate, the HB is still giving great fumes. I’m actually disappointed in the Ballantine’s, given what I remember from drinking it so far. It is sweet with a bit of spice at the back of the mouth, but it isn’t full of flavour. It is better on the finish though.

I conducted a second tasting a few days later, but this time I tasted the Ballantine’s first, and was surprised to find this seemed to have an effect on the outcome. The HB was still giving great fumes, but in comparison there were one or two off notes about the finish.

Overall then, the Ballantine’s is marginally better, but certainly not in proportion to the difference in price.

Test 3 – Highland Black vs Bell’s

Bell’s gives good fumes, and I have to say I’m surprised at how much I’ve been enjoying it. It either really has improved over the last decade, or drinking it with ice ruins it. You could say that about the HB too. I’ve been enjoying both much more than I used to, and I find this very encouraging. I’m sure your whisky snobs will continue to scoff at the idea of drinking either of these two blends, but for my money, they provided excellent value. Bell’s is a little sweeter, perhaps a little more complex, and I am going to say marginally better. Equally though, it is a bit more expensive usually. You can pick it up in the sales for the same price as Aldi’s HB, as I did, which means on this occasion, HB isn’t the winner. But it isn’t by much.

Test 4 – Highland Black vs Queen Margot 5

The Margot had no nose to speak of, but initial impressions were that is was not unpleasant on the palate. There may even be a hint of pears. I couldn’t actually separate them on the occasion of direct comparison, so that was looking good for Lidl.

I tried the Margot on its own a day or two later, and sadly it didn’t fare so well. It’s unduly rough on entry, and while it’s not bad overall, you really have to taste the fuck out of it, to get any benefit. And that amount of effort isn’t really worth it overall.

In response, I tried the Highland Black on its own, and was pleased with its dry earthiness and its sweetness. So, once again, the Highland Black is the victor.

Test 5 – Highland Black vs Kenmore 5

You’d be hoping for something special from Marks and Spencer, being as they are, purveyors of fine foods. I was pleased to find it gives decent fumes with a nice hit of peat, but the nose itself is a bit yeasty. It was fairly tasty, but a disappointingly cheap alcohol feel detracted from that. There was also a slightly off note – a very strong taste of cloves threatening to derail everything. Overall though, the Kenmore is just too sweet for my personal taste and, again, I have to declare Aldi the winner.

Test 6 – Highland Black vs Hankey Bannister

Side by side, you’d be hard pressed to pick a favourite from these two. Right now they are both seeming like the kind of cheap blend you can swig casually in the early afternoon without feeling you’re wasting your product. The Highland Black probably edges it slightly with it’s marginally sweeter, lighter components, while it’s cheap grain to the fore with the rough and burny Hankey Bannister. I’m starting to feel that cheap blended scotch is all much of a muchness these days, with there being little in the way of variation among the brands overall.

Test 7 – Highland Black vs McKendrick’s

That leaves just one more test – against the undisputed supermarket blended scotch champion. They are almost identical in colour, but Asda’s product has a bit more caramel about the nose – but in a nice way. Aldi’s product reveals a touch of menthol. On the palate, McKendrick’s is actually marginally sweeter with good fumes and an appley, spicy finish. There still isn’t much to separate them, but I’m actually going for the current reigning Standard Supermarket Blend Champion on this one. It actually reminds me of the 7 year old Fettercairn that I had been enjoying for a while – light in flavour, but not quite as light in body.

Conclusion

I’ve just noticed a startling omission. Why didn’t I save a bit of the Bell’s to try alongside the McKendrick’s? What an idiot! Both have turned out to be marginally better than the Highland Black, so it would be interesting to know how they would fare against each other. I suppose that’s one for another time. I was going to say that from memory, the Bell’s is probably better than the McKendricks, but I had another glass of the McKendrick’s the other night, and it just never fails to surprise and delight. A true budget gem. The Ballantine’s 12 is probably the best overall, but again, the price has to count against it slightly – it just isn’t that much better.

In all then, Aldi’s Highland Black fares quite well. There are of course a wealth of blended scotches available for around the same price point, and this one is better than some, but not the overall best. If you want surprising quality and real value for money, McKendrick’s is the budget blended scotch of choice.

Aldi vs Lidl: I'm trying these so you don't have to

Let’s get up to date now on what’s been going on in the long running and ongoing Aldi vs Lidl saga, with a few products I’ve been trying of late. First up, Cocobay…

I didn’t get around to writing about it at the time, but a while ago I found that I like popular coconut flavoured, rum liqueur Malibu – I normally mix it with coke; it’s just a good thing to add a bit of an alcoholic kick to a soft drink on a hot day when you don’t have any beer in the fridge – though I like to add a measure of vodka, too – just to make it worthwhile.

The thing is, Malibu is generally too expensive (£12-16 depending where you shop and when) in my opinion so… it’s almost like… you need a cheap alternative… and that’s where the budget supermarkets come in – Aldi in this case where, for a fantastic £4.99 you can pick up… Cocobay. It’s 21%, and worth adding to how ever many feet of Aldi shopping you’ve got already – are we the only people who measure our Aldi shop in feet?

You’re never going to drink this straight, but when I did, I can report that it wasn’t offensive, and when mixed, as described previously, there was no discernible difference between this and the real thing – which means you’d be mad not to buy it.

7/10

Switching genre now, with a trip to Lidl for the  Romanetti Extra Dry Vermouth…

One of the things I’ve noticed during the course of this ongoing Aldi-Lidl comparison is that Aldi’s products almost all state “bottled for Aldi” on the label (Clarke’s bourbon being a notable exception) while none of Lidl’s state anything to that effect.

Lidl’s Romanetti Extra Dry vermouth is another brand that strikes me as being made up in order to sound Italian. Is it actually from Torino? I’ve seen pictures online that state so on the label, but mine just says “producto de Italia” or something. On the reverse label it says it is made in Italy, but bottled in Germany. Come to think of it; aren’t all Lidl’s products actually bottled in Germany? Except the scotch. That’s one to look into… This one in all honesty looks the part. It has that generic vermouth presentation style, just… a little bit shitter. Let’s see what it’s like inside.

This has an odd aftertaste, but once the ice takes hold, it does exactly what I want it to – which frankly extends no further than give me a slightly refreshing fortified wine buzz. It is probably the worst [actual] vermouth I’ve bought so far [so Bellino isn’t included in this reckoning], but at £3.99 for 15 ABVs it would be picky to complain. All you can really ask for is not to get poisoned so, Lidl, mission accomplished. The thing is, a product of this standard isn’t going to win anyone over to the delights of vermouth so, with that in mind, next time I think I’m going to have to buy a decent one. It’s just hard to justify the price when you only get 70cl and it costs the same as (what I consider to be) an expensive bottle of wine (as decent vermouths do). It’s essentially only four glasses you’re getting for your money, after all.

4/10

And it’s back to Aldi for this week’s final contestant; Specially Selected Irish Cream (17% ABV)

This seems to fit into exactly the same category as Aldi’s Ballycastle Premium, and it’s the same price (£6.49) so I’m not sure why they are offering two almost (if not) identical products. The bottle is the standard Irish Cream type and the label looks like something that’s been stolen from the Tesco’s Finest range.

Without doing a direct comparison with the Ballycastle Premium, I think they’re essentially the same product. There’s certainly nothing here to make me think it is inferior in any way to the established favourite. Superb value, plenty of ABVs, excellent quality.

9/10

So where does that bring the head to head comparison? Well, we’ve now evaluated 11 Aldi products and only 3 from Lidl. I really must remedy that shortly. Nevertheless, Aldi is averaging a pretty good 6.6 out of ten, while Lidl is still struggling to recover from that -10 that James Cook is responsible for, and sits on a depressing zero.

Check back over the previous posts if you want to find out about the other products I’ve tried so far, and keep coming back for further updates. I’ll compile everything eventually – once I’ve tried an equal number of comparable products from each. In the meantime, keep it cheap, keep it strong.

Aldi vs Lidl pt 2: Glen Orrin 5 year old blended malt

This week the battle of the budget supermarkets continues with a look at Aldi’s 5 year old blended malt, Glen Orrin. It comes in a standard unremarkable bottle, with little information concerning origin or composition and a label that looks like it might have been designed by one of the teams from The Apprentice, but it is definitely bottled for Aldi at 40% ABV. And it’s only £13.29, so what do you get for your money?

Well, on first impression, there’s lots going on. It’s pleasingly sweet with a nice hint of peat on the nose. In fact, I’m not too proud to say I was mightily impressed – not all the notes are perfect, but it was surprisingly good for the price, and I was even moved to Whatsapp my mate Phil about my first impressions. He even went out and bought his own, and shared my opinion, calling it a find.

But then something weird happened, and each time I revisited it, I seemed to enjoy it less and less, until finally I was left wondering what had seemed so impressive about it in the first place. And I can’t answer that. There must have been something impressive about it, something different and intriguing… but now it’s gone.

All my experience so far has suggested whisky should open up -  for several months - after pouring that first glass, but here was something to challenge that supposition. This could be an anomaly among whiskies, and you can be sure I’ll keep you updated as I draw further conclusions, but as for the Glen Orrin 5, I’m afraid it means I can’t score it very highly: 5/10.

And that brings Aldi’s average score over all spirits and liqueurs I’ve tried to 6.25 out of 10. You can check the first instalment of this contest here.

Lidl, this battle’s other competitor (currently sitting on a poor -2 out of 10), do their own vatted malt that is ripe for comparison with this. Phil was actually motivated to pick that one up, and suggested it is better than the Glen Orrin, so I’ll have to follow suit at some point to find out who is the real king of cheap vatted malts… out of Aldi and Lidl. So much to do, so little time…

Anyways, that's all I got for this week. Sorry to've kept you waiting and that. I'll try to be more prompt next week.

Budget Supermarket Showdown: Aldi vs Lidl part 1

Intro

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

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

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

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

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

Part 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aldi Recap

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notable by their absence:

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

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

Lidl Recap

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

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

Coming Soon

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

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

Spirit log: Jack Daniel's Old no. 7

do you know who I am?

Jack Daniel’s Old No 7 must be one of the most recognisable whisky brands in the world. Seen on t-shirts, on taxis, in the movies, with such legends as Lemmy and Slash… and yet… it is somewhat disparaged among those who profess to be connoisseurs of whisky – of scotch in particular. Perhaps it’s the too cool for school image, perhaps it’s that it can so often be seen being mixed with coke… I don’t know. I do know that at its normal UK price of £26-28, it was never going to be top of my shopping list, but at £15? You know what was going to happen next.

I’ve never actually owned a bottle of Old No 7 before, but yes, of course I’ve tried it. I still didn’t know where I stood on my opinion of it though – I’d often thought it was a little on the sweet side, and even once or twice might have said it is for people who want to play at drinking whisky, tantamount to a soft drink. What a snob.

It’s fine to play though, isn’t it? I’m not above drinking JD…

Previous Experiences of Note

I guess I haven’t tried it that many times, but I do have one or two conflicting impressions informed by these rare occasions. First, I remember my friend Adam bringing a bottle to a poker game where a number of different spirits were on offer (Maker’s Mark, Highland Park, Jameson’s, el Jimador…) and when tasting JD later on in the evening I was mostly getting banana hints – more like banana flavoured sweets than the fruit itself.

That impression stuck with me for a while until a tasting with the Manchester Whisky Club where we were presented with three unidentified samples at the beginning of the evening. One was Irish, one scotch and the other - no doubt included in order to compare unfavourably with the Jameson’s, which was the focus of the evening - was Jack Daniel’s. When the host asked the room which of the three samples they preferred, it was just me who liked the one with the silky-smooth mouthfeel. It was revealed that this one was Jack Daniel’s, and the room sneered smugly. I hadn’t identified it as Jack Daniel’s, nor could I detect any hints of banana this time, but I know when I like something… in comparison to something else at least.

So finally I have a bottle of my own, and it is time to really get to know it. Fulfilment came one Friday night, shortly after the passing of the DYC8. Despite my previous experiences, and failure to identify it that one time, there is something distinctive about Jack Daniel’s, a dark, charred flavour that it is easy to assume is a result of the charcoal filtering that goes on prior to ageing. Whether that is the cause…  I have no idea – I certainly don’t notice a charred flavour in any of the various brands of vodka that are filtered that way.

What we really want to know

I didn’t have any plans for this, but fate decreed that while I was appraising Jack Daniel’s Old No 7, I would also get the chance to carry out a direct comparison with a budget equivalent – Aldi’s finest, Clarke’s bourbon.

I’ve never even considered buying this before, but it all came about because Mrs Cake decided to make me my very own irish cream for Christmas. Yes, she knows I love irish cream, so one day when she told me she couldn’t think of anything to get me for Christmas, and I flippantly replied “get creative”, she actually did and made me some.

Mrs Cake’s decision meant she needed to get some whisky, and she heard that bourbon would do just fine so she just picked something up at Aldi – Clarke’s. And lucky me, after my gift had been presented, I was also given what had been left over – essentially four shots.

Just because I’d never considered buying it didn’t mean I didn’t want to find out what it tasted like, so after trying the homemade irish ceam, I tried a glass of the bourbon too – making sure to reserve enough for a direct comparison with the JD a few days later.

So before we see how it stacks up, let’s take a quick look at the bottle… I see it doesn’t state “bottled for Aldi” on it anywhere, which is something of a surprise, and that it fulfils the minimum requirement of being 40% ABV. So there’s no particular reason to think this might be bad.

I emptied the Clarke’s into a glass, and poured a couple of measures of the JD into another, then went through to the lounge for a bit of Important Things with Demetri Martin.

There is little to choose between the two in terms of nose, and in flavour there is no obvious difference in terms of quality. Clarke’s is a little more sour and the JD did reveal that ghostly banana note, but on this one it’s all a matter of personal preference and value. I’d like to say they are actually equally good, though I do marginally prefer the JD. Having said that, at £12.97 Clarke’s costs less than half what you would generally expect to pay for JD’s image and reputation [read: marketing]. I think I still lack sufficient experience with American whiskies to be an authority on this but if we were to use JD as a benchmark, Clarke’s measures up quite well. In fact, if bourbon was something you had to have in your liquor cabinet, and you were struggling for funds one month, Clarke’s would do just nicely.

Clarke's - all by its self

Whatever your opinion of Jack Daniel’s, I think it’s good stuff. With so much whisky out there to try though, I wouldn’t be paying full price for it, but I won’t be shy if I see an offer like this again.

As for the Clarke’s? Aldi’s spirits are never on offer and bourbon isn’t currently one of my essential spirits so while it’s a steal at under £15, it’s unlikely I’ll be plumping for it any time soon.

Now, the proof they say, is in the pudding. In this instance, what I mean by appropriating that cliché, is that we can infer something about the quality of the JD by my use of it. I always have several whiskies on the go at the same time, so if one of them is the one I bring out when I have guests over, or that I save for when the time is just right, we can conclude that it must be of some quality – at the very least better than the others.

If it’s the one I bring out early in the evening, it is probably cheap but fairly enjoyable. If I swig it out of the bottle before I go out drinking or use it to fill my hipflask, you can be fairly sure I don’t think much of it.

Over it’s lifespan, my use of the JD sadly falls into the last category. I used it in my hipflask, I experimented with it (as you will learn on this blog in the coming weeks) and yes, I may have swigged a little out of the bottle from time to time. So I think we can conclude that for me at least, the JD doesn’t tick all my boxes. I prefer a nice single malt, and probably a decent blend and I don’t feel I’m wasting the JD by experimenting with it. Is that a bad thing? We don’t have to take it that way, but it does say something.

One last thing before I draw a line under this investigation; my recent trip to Canada turned up something that I have been wondering about of late –ever since research on Talisker 10 led to the idea that oxidation can actually be a good thing for whisky, rather than universally a bad thing, as I had understood up to that point.

I arrived at my mother-in-law’s to find that she had two JD miniatures that she would like me to drink. One had already been opened, and a small amount had been consumed, but nevertheless I drank both on the same evening, and found that the one that had already been opened… tasted better. It was sweeter with softer edges and was generally a more pleasant experience. I actually asked how long ago it had been opened, but unsurprisingly my mother-in-law didn’t have a clue. It had probably been opened by someone else and frankly, it could have been a couple of years ago or more. There wouldn’t have been much air in that little bottle but nevertheless, it pointed me in the direction of a realisation that appears to be becoming more self-evident; whisky is actually improved to an extent by oxidation. I’m sure there is a point at which it goes too far, but it certainly seems you’re safe for a good few months – unless in this case the contents were from two different batches, one of which was far better than the other.

Some people suggest you should open a new bottle and then leave it for 15 minutes before pouring to allow the spirit to open up. Frankly, I don’t massively see the point in that. Why not pour it into your glass, then leave that for 15 minutes?

Some also say that you should leave your dram for as many minutes as years it is old… which seems like an odd sentence. I’ve been trying that on and off, and to be honest, it takes me half an hour to drink a whisky anyway, so even if I don’t leave it for 10, 12, 15 minutes, some of the spirit will have been sitting in my glass that long.

Oh well, it’s all things to think about. Where was I?

At the end, that’s where. This week’s post comes to you a little late as Mrs Cake and I have been soaking up the sun in Gloucestershire and Glastonbury. You’ll be able to read all about those at some point in the indefinite future. Next week I’ll probably be looking at the endosymbiotic relationship that has been known to exist between booze and chocolate. Join me for that. For now though, it’s back to everyday life where people get arsey at work, dogs shit on the high street and someone has to make the fricking dinner. And I was all refreshed, too.