Whisky

A customer kindly bought me Scotch Whisky in thanks for some such .

When I first experimented with alcohol in my late teens most beers and spirits were detestable. My contemporaries and I settled on vodka as our tipple of choice. It had little taste which was easily masked with coke or blackcurrant . It was strong with a good punch per pence - you could obliterate your senses for five pounds. Other favoured abominations were Mailbu or Cointreau. You could contemplate your choices as a technicolor yawn engulfed the toilet bowl.

I forswore alcohol for most of my twenties and only dabbled again as a social drinker in my thirties. To my surprise I found my palate had changed. I enjoyed my first pint of Guinness with my uncle at the Irish version of the Grand National outside Dublin . I developed a taste for strange English ales like the Fursty Ferret. The greatest surprise was a liking for whisky.

When I first tried Irish whisky filched from my parents drinks cabinet nothing could disguise the odious taste and scent. I might as well have been drinking paraffin drowned in coke. Now I find myself savouring the different textures and aromas of a Scotch or Irish whisky like some wine bore. The only addition is a tablespoon of cold water . No ice. Tragic really.

As I contemplate tout le monde from my vantage at the Overlook Hotel I take solace in a dram or two.