South to North Wales

Posted on 2006/12/23 10:32:46 (December 2006).

[Friday 22nd December]
Yet again I woke at 4AM, but each day the amount of time it takes to get back to sleep again afterwards gets shorter and shorter. So hopefully by the end of the week I think I'll be more or less back to normal.

After a brief trip to Waitrose, then breakfast and a quick cup of coffee with Louise (my aunt), we set off for North Wales. The four hour trip from one corner of Wales to the other corner was very pleasant - at times there was thick fog and fabulous wintery landscapes, and at time we ascended above it for glorious views out over Welsh mountains. We just made one brief stop on route at Rhayader for the proverbial "bag of chips on the way home" (possibly a phrase only used my my family?), and we'd arrived at my Dad's house by just after 4.

Again, the evening was spent basically just sitting and relaxing. The rest of them had pheasant for dinner, and I knocked up a quick vegetarian dish of roasted asparagus and emmental which I then jealously guarded from the carnivores (why should I always have to eat a subset of what everyone else does?).

Oh and we tried my "home vatting". When we moved out of the flat in Tokyo I was faced with the dreadful task of possibly having to throw whisky away, because there was no time left to find a good home for it, and we couldn't carry any more. So at the least minute I came up with a controversial plan of pouring two bottles into one - a special edition Yamazaki and Hakushu. I hadn't actually tried the resulting vatted malt until tonight, and despite some initial scepticism, I have to say it wasn't actually all that bad.

Ha! The new whisky needs a new name! Then you just need to set up a business.... :)))))))

Posted by Nigel at 2006/12/23 11:02:56.

Well I am waiting to see the "Hawkins blend" at my local supermarket!

Posted by Lox at 2006/12/23 14:27:10.

Sadly it is an entirely one off product - the two constituent malts were both single cask bottlings we'd won as a runner-up prize in a competition. I think they literally just assigned two casks to bottle for all the runners up of this competition, so I don't think you'll ever see them again. In addition, I don't recall the proportions I used - it was basically whatever was left in bottle A poured into bottle B. Richard Paterson would lay an egg!

Posted by John at 2006/12/23 14:38:42.

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