The Whisky Thread

[Mason89]

It’s all a con innit?

Currently on Islay, wading my way through whisky samples & the reviews are in.

Kilchoman - tried 2, both tasted like whisky
Bunnahabhain- tried the 12 & 18 year old. Both tasted like whisky
Bowmore - tastes like whisky
Caol Ila - Johnny Walker Disneyland. Tastes like whisky

Tune in tomorrow for more whisky tasting insights.

[InversneckieDob]

I'm right into Cardhu Gold Reserve....maist hooorin' fine.

[TheDeeDon]

Tried the stuff once as a wet behind the lugs 16 year old as part of a bet at work

Had to drink a pint of it, which I did and then I passed out.

Got taken home in the back of a bakers van and carried up the stairs to our flat on a bakers board.

Never touched the stuff since.

[donsdaft]

Nae my drink at all.....tastes like whisky.

Mind you, when I started boozing it was very much a mannies drink, with lots of rules around it.
No ice, straight or just a splash of water.

I remember going to a nightclub as a young loon ( I was eventually thrown out) in Belgium and all the girls were drinking whisky colas.
Seemed strange, (because it was definitely not a female drink back in Scotland,) before I tried it but a whole can of coke fair improved the whisky.

So in this case, it's safe to say, I'm not a connoisseur.

[57vintage]

There’s a right lot of exploitative shïte around it. Distillers are now releasing ‘collectors’ expressions’ and pimping the cask effect on the dram (colour variation, and little else). Distillieries whose establishment and output were designed to supply bulk spirit to blends (long before the trendiness for ‘single malt’, the term itself a bit of a misnomer) are now featured on the shelves, marketed for the distillery name, and aimed at dilettante ‘collectors’. That’s YOU, Gordon and MacPhail.

I generally prefer rum nowadays. None of that interfered-with spiced shïte - as dark as the Devil’s waistcoat or Thatcher’s heart with fish scales, and preferably the finger of a trawlerman’s glove poking oot. Watsons, Pussers, Woods, all nectar. I do like a Cragganmore, or a Dalwhinnie, or a Tomatin, like, and the revenue from the dozen+ publicly-owned distilleries of Banffshire is included as a major contributor to the economy of the self-sufficient, independent Banffshire Soviet. Fûck off Westminster, up yer erse, Holyrood.

[Mason89]

My dad gave me and a couple of mates a bottle of Pussers when we were 14. It wasn’t a great example of parenting & it’s put me off the stuff ever since. I may try and revisit it at some point

[57vintage]

My dad gave me and a couple of mates a bottle of Pussers when we were 14. It wasn’t a great example of parenting & it’s put me off the stuff ever since. I may try and revisit it at some point

Don’t try the Gunpowder version initially. It’s the strength that the naval ratings were given each day until 1970 (I think) when the daily ration was stopped. Bstds.

When the company that sells it now first got the rights and recipe to market it, the top-strength stuff was what they put out. We first tried it on a holiday in North Wales, the week that Dingus led us to a home thrashing by Sigma Olomuc. They then reduced the strength of it in a blue label bottle , still delicious like. The Gunpowder has a black label. It was recommended to me by the college press officer, as right wing as they came, but was slightly forgiven when I discovered that he’d previously edited the Commando comics we 60s kids grew up with. “Achtung! Schpitfeuer!”

It’s perfectly acceptable to drink it with a mixer - Coke, or blackcurrant or peppermint cordial (I haven’t tried the latter two for over 40 years). There’s a bottle of fairly-insipid OVD in the cupboard which I may use to experiment with the rum and hot water stiffener that Dickens wrote of in The Pickwick Papers, but I suspect a stronger grog would be superior in my research.

https://pussersrum.com/pages/history

[donsdaft]

Must admit to hating anything rum flavoured as a kid and not liking it much now.

My loon brought me back a bottle of Forres Park Puncheon Rum from the Trinidad though and it changed my mind completely.

No "rum" taste at all, the best mixer drink I have ever had, I used to drink it with fresh orange juice, bloody gorgeous.

[57vintage]

I have only hazy memories of getting home when “going for a quick pint” in the Health Board Club after a home game about 15 years ago, and having ‘a rum and Crabbies to warm up’.

Rum = 40% ABV
Crabbies Ginger Wine = 13.5% ABV

FFS.

[donsdaft]

Ah, The Health Board Club.

Sadly missed.