Birthday Bash and Caol Ila
Well, it’s that time again and I have been the birthday boy. We had a lovely family dinner last night in the wonderful Cotton House Restaurant in Longcroft and I have never been more proud to see how my three granddaughters have evolved into beautiful young women, the cherry on my birthday cake was to have my adorable great-grandson Theodore with us.
I always find that birthdays are a time to reflect and remember happy memories of previous fun birthday times, for example for my 60th we had mini Highland Games in our front garden. We had tossing the Wellie, pitch and putt, egg and spoon race and tossing the caber (actually it was just tossing a small log whilst on your knees), but combined with a few drams this made for a fun day. The fun was compounded by our request that everyone dressed as a real or fictional sports figure. I went a little overboard, I was Rocky Balboa together with waxed chest hair and black dyed hair.
As you can imagine drams always feature at our family gatherings. Once again the family blessed me with some exceptional malts for this birthday. My Whiskyboys partner and daughter, Nicola excelled with her gift and I feel compelled to tell you about it as I thought it was a great idea. The family were all on Islay recently and visited the new Caol Ila visitors centre and there purchased a bottle of 12 Year Old, Nicola managed to get it engraved with my name and stating my age and birthday. I thought this was a very clever idea and if any of you are thinking of buying a special gift or even looking towards Christmas this is a gift you would not be disappointed with.
For me, one of my delights is having a variety of different drams, with different profiles and flavours to dip into and savour. Whisky is such a wonderful product and it is always a journey of discovery.
After a grand family dinner, we returned to my home for drams and chat. The drams that we had on the table for anyone to taste and enjoy were:-
Glendalough Double Barrel Irish Whisky
Bearface Canadian Whisky – Elementally Aged
SMWS 53.303 “Biting a Fireman’s Glove” – A 7 Year Old Caol Ila
As I get older I savour these events more and more and for me there is nothing more precious than seeing my family healthy, happy and enjoying a dram.
