Island Paradise: Highland Park Podcast

Lady Jaye got me a Fire TV Stick for my birthday (and an actual TV prior to my birthday, though that one's more for her than for me), and among other things, I've been using it to listen to audio using the TuneIn Radio app. I decided to plug "Orkney" into the search, and stumbled upon a couple of podcasts, including one about Highland Park. You can check it out here.

Fun With Whisky: Highland Park's Whisky 101

Is there anything that Highland Park Distillery can't do right? Longtime readers will remember that in late 2013, I toured the distillery. Highland Park - and particularly Highland Park 18 - has become my favorite whisky, and HP12 is a staple of my whisky diet. When I was back home for a few months, a buddy of mine - also a whisky connoisseur - showed me this video, and I wanted to share it with you, the valued readers.


It's really pretty tough to come up with anything about Orkney that's not to like. Highland Park helps.

More Fun With Whisky: Space Whisky!

The BBC's headline says it all: Ardbeg 'space whisky' set for return to Earth. Ardbeg is a fantastic, peaty whisky from Islay, and it became one of my personal favorites in Orkney. As I've mentioned before, Ardbeg 10 is one of my personal favorites, and I happen to have a bottle of it in my whisky cabinet - of course, my bottle hasn't been to space, but I'm still looking forward to cracking it when my current bottle of Highland Park 12 is finished.

Ha! "Space whisky"! Love it!

More Fun With Whisky

Most of my experience with Scotch whisky is fairly recent. My first taste of whisky hails all the way back to 2004, during my first trip to Orkney, when Captain John offered me a dram on my last night in the archipelago. I wasn't really sure what to think of it at that point, and didn't pay it much more attention for a very long time. In 2009, the Cap'n and HH6 visited, and he asked if I needed anything from "Blighty" - apparently that's a nickname for the United Kingdom - so I requested a bottle of Scapa Single Malt (not knowing about Highland Park at the time, but that's alright!). The Cap'n graciously provided, and I saved that bottle for a special occasion - that occasion being a meeting with my dad in Wyoming as I road-tripped across America prior to heading to the Middle East. Dad's not a whisky drinker, but even he agreed that Scapa was nice and smooth. I continued to enjoy the bottle once I was back in the States in 2012.

A few months ago, I talked about Scotch whisky, mainly discussing a place called The Grill and a dram of whisky that my buddy Sergeant G implored me to seek out. While I've been in Scotland, I've made an effort to cultivate a taste for whisky. So, today, I thought I'd continue with this week's theme of alcohol by taking a few minutes to discuss my experiences sampling fine malt whiskies during my year (and some change) in Scotland.

First and foremost, let's get our terminology straight. This challenge is best summarized by an ancient sketch from Saturday Night Live...


For those of you who were unable to decipher Mike Myers' Scottish accent, he said:

"'Scotch' is a drink, 'Scots' are a people... But we're both quite tasty."

That having been said... Nobody in Scotland calls it "Scotch", but rather, "whisky". Scotch whisky can only be made in Scotland, although there are other places that make whisky (Japan being one noteworthy example). Last week, Fail Blog ran a feature that they titled "The More You Know: Bourbon Vs Whisky", but which should really have been titled "We're Advertising for Maker's Mark Today". Its own money quote was actually from the comments section, in which someone literally said:

"Shouldn't this be marked as an advertisement for Maker's Mark?"

And how! At any rate, it does give a few objective facts about whisky and how it's made. One of the things I found interesting was that the plural form of American and Irish "whiskey" is "whiskeys", while the plural form of Scotch, Canadian, and Japanese "whisky" is "whiskies". That's good information to have; the rest of it is pretty much just a bunch of shill for Maker's Mark, which isn't Scotch whisky, so who cares? So, all of that having been discussed, what are some of my experiences with various whiskies?

Ardbeg 10: I really, really like this malt. I do tend to go for the more peaty, smokey whiskies, and this is one is delicious. Lately, while I've been working on Bold Brigand projects, I've found myself enjoying a double of Highland Park 12, and then moving on to Ardbeg for something a bit more aggressive. It's fantastic.

Ardmore: One of my favorite malts is Ardmore. I've only ever found it at The Tippling House, which promptly ran out of it and took around a month to get more of it in. Oh, well, when it's available, it's fantastic.

The Dalmore: Early during my last night in Aberdeen, I found myself at The Tippling House while a representative from The Dalmore was making a visit. Between his visit and me knowing CN Constable, I was able to get a taste of The Dalmore, and really enjoyed it.

Edradour: As I noted in my previous post about whisky, Sergeant G implored me to seek out Edradour. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't especially memorable. On the other hand, I've come to the conclusion that you can't really enjoy whisky with any ice or water in it - you really need to drink it straight up. (Plenty of people will disagree with me on that, and that's fine, as drinking whisky is a fairly personal thing and everyone has their own preference.) Next time I'm in Aberdeen, maybe I ought to give it a try without the ice cube that I incorporated into the first sample I tried.

Highland Park 12: Both because of my love of Orkney, and because of its great taste, HP12 is my "old reliable" whisky. I tend to prefer smokey whiskies, but there's just no beating HP12's smoothness with just a touch of inexplicable honey flavor to it. Once I get back to America, one of my first orders of business will be to find out how I can get a hold of HP12 on a regular basis.

Highland Park 18: HP18 is an older malt, which means that it runs a bit steeper, which means that I save it for occasional enjoyment. I first tried it during my tour of the distillery, and absolutely loved it. Unlike HP12's confident smoothness, HP18 is slightly more aggressive - it requires careful enjoyment and respect.

Thor and Loki: Thor and Loki are higher end whiskies from Highland Park. I got my first taste of Thor back in Aberdeen, while I was trying to kill the St. Machar Bar's bottle of Thor in an effort to free up one of the Viking longship wooden cases for CN Sister. Thor's a good whisky. I had my first dram of Loki last week - for more than £12! - and while it was alright, I didn't think it was worth the equivalent of $18 for a dram. Like HP18, these are more costly drams that merit being saved for special occasions.

Scapa: What can I say? The tiny Scapa Distillery does a great whisky. It's smooth, it's delicious, and it's Orcadian. Outstanding!

One addendum to all of this. I tend to send a lot of post cards to remind my friends back in America that I'm still alive. Occasionally, I post an offer of a post card on Facebook. I did that on Tuesday, and my buddy Nicholas of Arabia struck on something that became popular...

Nicholas of Arabia: Tom, you know how women sometimes put perfume on letters? Can you send me a postcard and rub some scotch on one?
Tom's Cousin PJ: Ill take a scotch coated card.
The Garminator: I will email you, and I also want mine "scotch-coated"

In the end, I think I sent four "Scotch-coated" post cards, which is to say, post cards featuring a drop of whisky. Most of them got HP12, but Nicholas of Arabia was fortunate to get a drop of HP18. I hope he enjoys it even a mere fraction of the amount that I've enjoyed getting acquainted with whisky over the last year (and some change).

Fun With Whisky

It's funny how many people assign you missions when you spend a year in Scotland. I already mentioned how my buddy Chops directed me to go visit his old stomping grounds in Edzell (challenge accepted, and accomplished). Another buddy, the Man of Steel, wants me to bring him back as much IRN-BRU as I possibly can. My buddy Gus, who came here with his own two feet on my dime, has yet to orchestrate a mission he volunteered me for to get him a bottle/cask/flagon/tankard/some other such measure of some specific alcohol. On that note, a buddy of mine from my days of working with the Army, Sergeant G, has repeatedly insisted that I locate and consume a dram of a whiskey called Edradour. The Edradour Distillery is apparently located outside Pitlochry, apparently not quite fifty miles outside such cities as Dundee ("Scumdee", if you're Aberdonian) and Perth.

The thing about Scotland's many, many whiskys - not to be confused with Irish whiskeys, which are pronounced the same, but spelled and distilled differently - is that there are tons of them, and some are more rare than others. Orkney, for example, is home to two distilleries: Highland Park, and Scapa, which are literally within walking distance of one another just outside Kirkwall. (By contrast, Shetland has no distilleries.) Highland Park is ubiquitous in Aberdeen's pubs, while I've only ever found Scapa a couple of times. Part of the reason why I had delayed on Sergeant G's orders was that I had no clue how common Edradour was - when I'm out for a dram, I usually just default to Highland Park 12.

A few weeks ago, I was at The Tippling House with CN GBU-16 and CN Homeboy. We were about to leave when we sort of accidentally got roped into another group's pub crawl when an attractive young lady who was almost tragically inebriated began "twerking" and got our attention. GBU-16 and Homeboy were able to extricate themselves, due in no small part to my assistance; I, on the other hand, got roped into joining the pub crawl. Our next stop was a place I'd been hearing about for months called The Grill, whose claim to fame is that it boasts Aberdeen's best whisky selection. Of course, having only ever read the name of this particular whisky a couple of times from Sergeant G, I was unable to try it.

Earlier this week, I changed all of that. I checked, and re-checked, and checked once more, from the instructions Sergeant G had sent on Facebook...

Tom: Hey, what was that whisky you were on about? I finally found the whisky pub here, so I want to try it out this week if they have it.
Sergeant G: Edradour
Tom: Cool, thanks.
Sergeant G: Let me know which finish you tried and how fantastic it was to your mouth!!!!

... and went into The Grill on Saturday evening for a dram of Edradour. Before I'd gotten even halfway into it, I snapped a picture with my phone and posted it to Facebook with the caption: "Sergeant G: Mission Accomplished." And you know what? Even without my usual single ice cube, it was a damn good dram.

The Grill is a pretty neat place. The outside makes it look like a rough, beat up old pub. Once you're inside, though, it's actually pretty impressive. The bartenders are smartly dressed, the woodwork is beautiful, and though it could do with a bit of renovation, the bottom line is that it provides the best selection of Scotland's various whisky offerings of any pub in Aberdeen. If you're like me, and just enjoy an occasional dram of Highland Park 12, there are plenty of pubs that will make it happen for you; but when you need something specific that you can't find anywhere else, The Grill may just be able to make it happen.