Oh, how my fingers are tingling with temptation! A lot of people are of the opinion that the royal family do little good yet cost a lot of money – paid to cut ribbons and pose for pictures, they say – well, I don’t quite agree. Call me a traditionalist, but I like the royal family. Sure, they get paid a fair bit and on paper their job description doesn’t look too arduous, but they’re a great symbol for Britain. As a country we’re often associated with almost medieval times and deep-rooted traditionalism, it’s sort of our USP (can you tell I’m a marketer?) as a country. Our current queen, Elizabeth II, is a prime example of quintessentially British refinement and class. The reason for my itchy fingers, then, is a whisky released in honour of her 60th year as head of state.
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While I would never proclaim to be a particularly creative person myself, I do admire creativity. Quite a lot, in fact. I love being surprised by something that’s done differently to how you would expect- whether it’s an innovative design, unusual flavour, or quirky simile. I love a good simile. What I don’t love, however, is when you come across something that wants to seem novel and quirky, when in fact it’s just a massive cliché. I came across an example of that earlier today, and I will tell you all about it in a minute.
First, I want to share with you a competition that’s being run by Jura. It’s sort of an online “pub quiz”, whereby every week they post up a new trivia question on their website and at the end of the week they pick a winner out from everyone who’s answered the question correctly. And what’s the prize? A bottle of Jura Superstition! On top of that, at the end of the quiz (It’s running until August) the person who has answered the most questions correctly will receive – and you may want to sit down for this one – a bottle of Jura 1976! That would set you back just shy of £500 if you were to pick it up in the shop. To take part you’ll need to become a “Diurach” – which is basically just a member of their fan club, and you can sign up for free on their website.
Now, back to the annoying cliché. Jura call this quiz “whisky pursuit” (which I like – it’s a pretty good pun and a nice reference to that most beloved of board games) – with the tagline “it’s far from trivial”. GAH! Every single quiz based around trivial pursuit uses that tagline, and you can just see their smug little faces when they thought of it. I’m so bored of it! Heck, every single quiz ever made by man uses it, and it was only clever once. Stop it.
Booker’s Bourbon is a particularly special bourbon created by the James B. Beam Distilling Co. Why is this bourbon special? The producer claims that this is the only uncut, unfiltered bourbon you can purchase. It goes straight from the barrel to the bottle and then onto your table. Booker’s Bourbon is aged in the center of the rackhouse, where the temperature and humidity are ideal for perfect aging. It does cost a hefty price, which deterred me for a while—not for lack of interest, simply for lack of funds. I did finally manage to get my hands on a bottle of the 7-year-old vintage for $58.00.
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This final article summarising my recent Islay holiday will focus briefly (a promise I commonly make and constantly break – this time it will be kept) outline my thoughts of the Ardbeg distillery. The reason for its brevity is simply that we didn’t go for a full distillery tour. As I mentioned in my previous article on the Laphroaig distillery, it really isn’t worthwhile doing a full tour at every distillery you visit.
So, rather than booking the full tour at Ardbeg we decided to book lunch in their (absolutely excellent) restaurant and combine this with a tasting session. This was quite possibly the best decision we made in the planning of the trip – firstly because the range and quality of their food was amongst the best I experienced on Islay (their Haggis Panini was scrumptious!) and second because the tasting was an absolute joy!
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