Recently, upon having visitors who stayed in town for a few days, I ventured into the basement of the Whisky Experience – up by Edinburgh Castle – for a bite to eat. Thankfully it wasn’t quite as gruesome an experience as it may sound, as their basement actually serves as the home of a rather good restaurant called Amber. It was my first visit to the restaurant, though I have previously attended the whisky tour upstairs, and with my expectations set not too high, I was actually quite delighted!
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If you’ve ever had meatballs in IKEA, you will have been offered “jam and gravy” or more specifically “lingonberry jam and gravy”. Like me, you may not have had a clue what the heck “lingonberry” actually is. One thing is for sure, though, the Swedes ruddy love the stuff – it seems to me that they have it with just about anything! So far I’ve been served it as an accompaniment to various savoury meals, ice cream and even in a whisky cocktail!
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Glenlivet is one of those distilleries that I’ve never really been able to bond with. They are a big name, and their sale levels indicate that a lot of people have become rather more affectionate with them than have I. As such, I keep thinking that there must be something I’m missing. By all means, the expressions I have tried have all been perfectly fine, good even, but not good enough to deserve some of the ratings they’ve achieved nor the rave reviews they’ve received.
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I was invited to join a few friends for a picnic in the Meadows (a big park area in central Edinburgh) today – cue the coldest day in 3 weeks – and on the way there I nipped in to a newsagent to pick up some beer, and I happened to spot a can of ready mixed Jim Beam Kentucky Bourbon & Cola. I’ve noticed Jack Daniels & Cola popping up in most shops, even Waitrose, but haven’t seen Jim Beam before. Since it was there and I was buying a few bottles of beer anyway, I thought I would give it a go. And since I was trying the Beam, I sort of had to try the Jack as well, wouldn’t you agree?
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It was Tuesday, and I was going out to see a show. Environmentally conscious as I am, and a decent enough evening as it was, I decided to cycle to the pub where I was meeting my dear friend before going to a comedy show (the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is the world’s biggest comedy/arts festival, is on at the moment). Inevitably, I ended up having just one or two more pints than I probably ought to, and decided it would perhaps be a bad idea to cycle home. What I didn’t think was that someone would spot my lonely bicycle and go “hey, wouldn’t it be super-fun to kick this to bits?”, but of course they ruddy did.
Hence I wonder: who are these absolute mongrels anyway? Walking home after dropping my bike off to be fixed (which will cost at least £50, apparently) I actually spotted 3 (THREE) other bikes that had endured similar treatments. Who? Why?
Anyway, enough moaning. The show I went to see was Pappy’s All Business and it was actually hilarious – perhaps not worth the extra £50 on top of the £12 ticket, but definitely worth seeing. The only negative was that the beer on offer at the bar outside the venue wasn’t great… I had to drink Heineken! The pub we went to beforehand did have a pleasant surprise in stock though, namely the new-ish Pilsen from the Scottish Stewart brewery. I’m not normally a massive fan of theirs; I quite like Edinburgh Gold but their 80/- is about as boring as beer gets.
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It must have been some 10, perhaps more, years ago that I watched some cooking show or other on TV and this little recipe caught my eye. As with so many another things, though, my memory of it slipped away along with the piece of paper on which I had scribbled down the recipe. I don’t know about you, but I quite like when that happens – I like having a favourite dish, drink, item, what have you, and losing it for years to later rediscover it and rekindle that old flame. Add to that the fact that it is summer, albeit a cold one, and the rediscovery of my old favourite ice cream recipe couldn’t have made me any happier. In short, I’m chuffed, and thought I’d share this gem of a recipe with you, whisky fanatics!
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