Discover Whisky

On Saturday this week I took a stroll into Edinburgh - it was its customary grey colour and I spent most of the day outflanked by people who were either delusional, unfunny or both. Its currently the fringe in Edinburgh and every one who ever held beliefs that they were funny seems to take this week out of the asylum to foist their mis-held belief on the world. That said I did see a Radio 4 production of Loose Ends - Arthur Smith was funny ,hungover yet funny. After that I lunched at a quaint Chinese restaurant which was a nice change from the grey outlook. Got soaked to the skin and called the day a wash out.

As a result I treated myself to an improptu tasting session accompanied by little more than my good lady wife ,some nice malts and a board of cheese and biscuits. To open proceedings a quick dram of Rosebank removed the chill from my bones and also raised my cheeks to a gentle ruddy colour, or so I am informed. There is a simple elegance to this whisky - completely unlike where it was made (a stone throw away from my mothers house in darkest Camelon - near Falkirk). This is one of my few remaining bottles of Rosebank aquired from a local butcher soon after the distillery was listed to become tragically ‘hip’ flats - I hear the stills were shipped off to Japan as part of some fated mission to create better whisky. As of yet the results have been far from encouraging.

This was soon followed by a gentle smoked cheese on Water biscuit and a fine episode of Columbo. Following this I embarked on a journey north and west to the Talisker - can’t have too much Rosebank god knows when I’ll be able to afford some more. The Talisker distillery is a fine little drive into Skye and you can taste the salt air in the spirit itslef and it has a nice little peatiness to it. Didnt taste as fine as I remembered it: but the last time I tasted it was in the garden of a friend on Skye with the sun rising as we watched a buzzard - I thought it was a small eagle by my father soon convinced me I needed less to drink or improved eye sight. Still a nice little drop to keep the cold out and maintain the soul.

For the third taste I left whisky beind completely and started on Zacapa rum - in the interim I was treated to some nice Arran cheese, smoked cheddar. Damn good. Colin keeps saying he’s going to smoke some more with a device he purchased but have yet to see the evidence of his smoked food or the device in which he plans to smoke it. Zacapa Rum, 23 year old, is one of the finest Rums you can get - in my opinion. And fully justifies this years trip to St Kitts to watch Scotland get drubbed at cricket. Go to St Kitts, stay at the Marriott and spend all evening in the Rum bar very knowledgeable little chap called Israel works there - he also introduced my to Eldorado but thats for another night.

Had a gentle stroll to the shops to wash some od the day from my brow and returned to find theice cubes just reformed enough to splash a couple of cubes into a glass with a reasonably heavy measure or two of Glenmorangie.Then endured the football scores coming in whilst realising that I had missedmost of the day. Well there is always next week to be bombarded by flyers from cretins on the Royal Mile.