I married my beautiful bride, Brandy, 17 years ago and my brother was my best man on that special day. At the reception he stood and presented the most amazing, heart-felt, best man speech I have ever heard. I remember he always had a way with written word and I admired him for it. With his speech, he also presented me with a bottle of 21 year old single malt scotch. To this day I can’t recall the exact distillery, but even me being completely ignorant about single malts at the time, I found my drink of choice!
I don’t have much of a whisky collection and I tend to drink it faster than I can afford to replace or add to it. I know…I know…first world problems! One of my favourite things to do is to share my collection with visitors or house guests. Even better than that, is if my guest also has a taste for whisky. Well this week the icing on the cake was that my guest was my one and only older Brother, who I haven’t seen years. He spent a couple of days with us, getting to know his nieces and catching up with us. The evenings were spent enjoying good conversation, food, music and drams from my limited collection.
We started with a favourite local artisanal single malt from Shelter Point Distillery. I then poured him a dram of Aberfeldy 12 year from Perthshire and then a Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban. We finished off with a dram of Highland Park High Volume.
Although I have had these bottles in my collection for some time and tasted them all many times, there seemed to be more to them when enjoyed with good company. They had more aromas, more character and more flavour with longer finish. I only wished I had more in my collection to share!
Here’s to savouring special moments much like a special dram…. Slainte!
Adam