As seen on the whisky menu at the Harbour Inn Restaurant, Bowmore.
Category: Tasting
Postcard: bikes FTW!
Wheeee! We rented bikes on Islay and this has been our main mode of transport in fair weather and torrential downpour. We did a good, leisurely 7 or 8 miles yesterday just to get the hang of it again after all these years. Within that range from Port Ellen (where we’re staying) lie Laphroaig, Lagavulin… Continue reading Postcard: bikes FTW!
Postcard: the story so far
Fresh sea air and exercise at Ardbeg We visited the Ardbeg and Laphroaig distilleries today, and did the tours. We also sampled a few drams along the way. By our count, 14: Ardbeg – Blasda Ardbeg – Rennaissance Ardbeg – Corryvreckan Ardbeg – Still Young Ardbeg – Uigedail Laphroaig – 10 year old cask strength… Continue reading Postcard: the story so far
Postcard: LaPhrog on tour
It’s important to reiterate that I had never actually seen a real live frog until fairly recently. Now, it seems every time I drink whisky with Clutch, one appears. I’m starting to think it’s the same one each time, and he’s followed us to Scotland. It was chucking it down with torrential rain when Clutch… Continue reading Postcard: LaPhrog on tour
Postcards from Scotland
Clutch and I are off to the Islay jazz festival, about which all you need to know is jazz, in whisky distilleries, on Islay. We’re gone Wednesday to Monday. At the end of day 1, we already have far too many things to report – and it’s become clear that our original plan of a… Continue reading Postcards from Scotland
Son of La Phrog
It was a Monday night, and that seemed a perfectly good reason to go and visit Clutch for a whisky tasting. It was, after all, his turn to host. Oddly, we’d both been of the same mind – each had brought a 16 year-old along. Mine a blonde (the Glenlivet Nadurra 16), and his a… Continue reading Son of La Phrog
La Phrog
Occasionally, just to keep our noses and palates finely tuned, Clutch and I will have an impromptu private tasting of single malts at either of our places. It’s the kind of training regimen that Rocky Balboa would be proud of. On one of these evenings, we did a bit of a marathon session, where we… Continue reading La Phrog
Whisky Country: Part 3
Glenfiddich distillery is situated on the doorstep of the picturesque town of Dufftown. It produces one of the most ubiquitous and widely consumed malts in the world, in the form of the Glenfiddich 12 Year Old, but its other expressions are definitely worth investigating also. The Solera Reserve or 15 Year Old, as it has… Continue reading Whisky Country: Part 3
Tasting notes
I have a Moleskine notebook. I’d wanted one for years, and I could never justify the fact that they are so much more expensive than anything else out there in that category of product. But once I actually bought one in a moment of self-indulgence, I realised what the cost factor was. Moleskine notebooks are… Continue reading Tasting notes
What food with whisky?
I once read that whisky writer Michael Jackson loved to always have chocolate chip cookies on hand when tasting some of the peatier Islay malts. I can no longer find the reference, and perhaps that’s equal parts memory and wishful thinking, but I get the feeling that there are other things that can be had… Continue reading What food with whisky?