Whisky for my men, beer for my horses

Many Americans who visit Scotland do so for golf.  To stand or play at Carnoustie, Royal Troon, or St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf.  I don't golf.  When asked, my stock in trade answer is that I am not old enough yet.  That said, we did visit St. Andrews under the auspices of our good friends John Rae and Carol Smith.  Standing at The Old Course, where golf has been played for over 600 years, was akin to standing in a cathedral, even for a golf heathen who doesn't like spoiling his walks.  Breathtaking.

Equally breathtaking is the wide variety of single malt whisky in Scotland, to say nothing of some worthy blends.  Please note that I chose to spell the word without the "e".  My mate, Callum, once asked me why the Americans put an "e" in whisky.  My reply, "I think it's because we left the 'u' out of so many words."
"Fair answer," he replied.

While we visited Scotland I was determined to try as many single malts as I could, without a taste of Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, or Macallan...all should be prefaced by The and all quite popular here in the United States.

Here's my list.  I hope you appreciate the effort:

1. Abelour
2. The Balvenie 10 year old Double Wood
3. Bunnahabhain
4. Monkey Shoulders (a surprisingly light Islay, peat and smoke but not overpowering)
5. Glen Dronach
6. Glenmorangie
7. Highland Park
8. Glenfiddich 15 (OK, I fudged a bit, but I happen to love this whisky)
9. Glenfarclas
10. Tomintoul 16 (the featured malt at the Scotch Malt Whiky Heritage Center the day we visited)
11. Miltown Duff 10
12. Cragganmore
13. Tobermory
14. Singleton
15. Talisker
16. Edradour 10
17. Edradour 10 Un-Chillfiltered
18. Dalwhinne
19. Benmorach 10 (the malt of the month in the Oxford Bar)
20. Auchentoshan
21. Old Rhosdhu

Old Rhosdhu, rather unremarkable as a whisky, was remarkable for another reason.  Following my first visit to Scotland, I set a goal to drink my way through the single malt alphabet.  Six letters were not represented: R, V, W, X, Y, and Z.  For two years I walked around with a list in my wallet, assaulting bartenders and publicans during my travels in search of a particularly tough letter.  "I" for instance.  Inchgower is a tough one to find.  My mates in Scotland thought this a worthy and somewhat humourous endeavor (a slight bow to my friends with that gratuitous "u"!) so they proceeded to inform the publicans of this goal.  It was during an epic pub crawl that we found Old Rhosdhu, a dusty bottle at The Lismore.  (That's the same pub with the world's greatest urinal.)

As I sipped a dram of Old Rhosdhu at The Lismore on the Saturday before our departure the young man behind the bar asked me if I had a new, ambitious goal set.  I was stunned.

I am at a goal crossroads.  Our nine week trip to Scotland was a major goal, years in the planning, and the single malt alphabet goal was a multi-year effort.  Both are now in the "Mission Accomplished" category.  I admit to being a bit at sea.

Suggestions?

Return

Our walk back from Jelly Hill last Thursday was a sad one as we said goodbye to old friends and new.  We were also weighed down with amazing gifts...amazing in part because they were totally unexpected and then because they just were.  Ann gave us two wonderful scarves, Pam a book of Charles Rennie Macintosh postcards, Tom & Marion Thornton's candy and two books from his personal library, and John & Carol's paperweight (without knowing that Lynn collects them) and a quaich.

The quaich is a ceremonial, communal cup, offered in Scottish households to family and friends, usually filled with usquebah, "the water of life," i.e. whisky. 

We mixed a few tears along with the rain as we walked down Byres Road to our flat for the last time on this trip.

The next morning Andrew picked us up at 6:30 a.m. and we off to Glasgow Airport for the 9:00 a.m. Continental flight to Newark, travelling east into the morning.  When we landed in Newark we collected our bags and cleared Customs.  I had to ask the Customs Agent, who did have a rather thick New Joisey accent to repeat his question, as my ear was still adjusting to life without that Scottish lilt.  When we rechecked the luggage we entered into the midst of a brewing argument between two baggage handlers, neither of whom appeared to want to place our bags on the conveyor.  We were finally directed to leave the bags, but I lingered just outside the area to watch and insure that the bags actually made it off the cart.  They did, quite emphatically, as the baggage agent lifted each bag about chest high and body slammed them into the conveyor.  I rushed back into the area, using a few choice variations of THAT WORD I learned at the feet out my Scottish mates. 

The flight to San Diego was uneventful and on-time.  It even included the airline version of a cheeseburger.  We arrived, our bags did not.  Nor did they arrive for two other Glaswegians who were visiting San Diego and had been travelling with us all day.  Ours were delivered to the house at 2:35 a.m., with only the metal container containing a bottle of Edradour somewhat the worse for wear.  I did have visions of Oban soaked clothes.  I would have looked the perfect fool sucking on whisky soaked laundry.

And so it's back to the routine.  The gym at 5:00 a.m., the office, coaching sessions, preparing for meetings, and a flight back to the East Coast to work with the amazing team at LAZ Parking.  We have about 1,500 photos to go through.

Our dinners have been spiced with reading the journal entries from the trip, keeping fresh wonderful memories.  We have also been grilled by friends, family, and acquaintances about the trip.

Tomorrow night Alan & Lilian will be stopping by for a wee dram and dinner.  They are Weegie ex-pats, planning to return over the holidays to visit their families.

Last evening we hosted a group at Wine Steals.  We started at 6:00 p.m. and left about 11:15 p.m. to return home, a solid effort.  Much to our surprise we both looked right as we stepped off the curb.  Fortunately no vehicle was approaching from the left, the true source of danger here.  My new mantra: Look left!

Haggis and The End of Something

All our bags are packed, we're ready to go...

Our last day in our flat on Cresswell Street in Glasgow, Scotland.  We had an interesting week to end our nine week stay.

Friday was our last rendezvous with the crowd at Jelly Hill.  Wee Lee, Carol's son, somehow got a few of the adults to race him up and down the street.  Lee is a 12-year old greyhound and he was battling those who are older, larger, and somewhat debilitated by adult beverages.  One of our number, fueled with several wines and tequila shooters, careened off the glass of a nearby retail shop, fortunately only bruising her shoulder.  From the glass she caromed into our table, upsetting a few glasses.  Within 20 seconds, Lynn and Carol had replaced the chairs, Callum the drinks, and the rest of us the order of the table.  Like a well-oiled machine, something we do every day.  The erstwhile Sebastian Coe wanna-be's husband put the perfect capper to the event, shaking his wise head and saying, "I am glad my mother wasn't alive to see that."

The next day was a bit of a scramble, as I needed to rent a kilt, flashes, formal shirt and cravat for that evening.  I have the other pieces needed for formal Scottish attire, but the kilt is still being made.  The reason, a Scottish dinner hosted by Tom & Marion Brodie.  It was an evening of firsts.  Most of the men wore their kilts.  We were piped into the Brodie home by their amazing piper daughter, Iona.  Marion's brother and sister-in-law, Scott & Jackie, turned out an amazing salmon on oatcakes hors d'ourvre.The menu included Cockaleekie soup (thank you, Jerry Allsop), haggis, neeps and tatties, with a small dram of Athol Brose (whisky, oatmeal and honey) and a cheese course (Callan & Kirtseen) with port that followed dessert.  As the haggis was brought into the dining room, Iona played "Scotland the Brave."  Lucy Allsop addressed the haggis, that "Great chieftan of the puddin' race", with a bit of Rabbie Burns.  I will not divulge the ingredients for haggis, lest there be the occasion when you find yourself at table sampling this most Scottish of dishes.  All I will say is that the entire meal, top to bottom (well, I do prefer my whisky without honey and oatmeal), was sensational. 

Over the mantle of the fireplace a banner hung.  Cead Mile Failte, one-thousand welcomes. There can be no better summation of the evening.

The survivors retired to Tom's den.  Gylen played the guitar, those who felt the urge sang, and Tom graced us with a couple of monologues and some wonderful stories.  Tom was a noted ceilidh performer, and, as often is the case, the stories around the pieces are sometimes as good as the poems themselves.  My new goal is to memorize "The Tobermory Treasure."

We walked home at 2:15 a.m.

And rose the next day to watch the Spain versus Netherlands World Cup Final at Callum and Lucy's place.

On Monday, we took our last train trip to Edinburgh.  We visited Mary King's Close, a series of streets buried under the nineteenth century construction of the Royal Exchange.  Some shopping for gifts for family and friends.

Tuesday we hit City Centre in Glasgow.  That evening we hosted a dinner at Stravaigin 2, a restaurant in Ruthven Lane.  On the second Tuesday of each month they feature a Dutch Rijstaffel (rice table), an assortment of curried Asian dishes served with Tiger beer and lime and coconut rice.  Superb!  We toasted each other, we gave a few gifts to show our appreciatian for all the hospitality and help we've been shown these past two months.  John Rae read "The 37 Bus", a humourous poem in the style of the aforementioned R. Burns.  We closed the restaurant and walked to Oran Mor, a church that has been repurposed as a bar (there's just something so right about that!).  There was the lightest of rains, a persistent mist, called a smirr, that fell on us during our walk. 

Callum and I walked side-by-side, and I said that I felt like the entire West End had adopted us.  "No, mate," he replied, "all of Scotland has adopted you."

And that is how we feel and that is what is making this evening's farewell so hard.  Yes, we are eager to return to the familiar and our friends and family.  These past weeks though have been, as they say in these parts, "Dead brilliant."  New friends, incredible experiences, and a true sense of what it is to live in another culture.

We are off Jelly Hill!

Slainte!

Sprinting to the finish or When Did Nine Weeks Become Two?

It has been a busy week. Suddenly the nine weeks were down to two and we started to feel a bit of panic for things not done along with the realization that there would some of those things that will remain unaccomplished and best left for a later visit.


In the past week we:

• Had dinner with Jerry Allsop and learned a bit more about Glasgow’s World War II history…because of shipbuilding the city was a favorite target of the Luftwaffe

• Were passengers and guests of John Rae and Carol Smith to a visit to St. Andrews

• Visited Linlithgow and the Castle where Mary, Queen of Scots was born

• Met up again with Bob & Lorna Deeley and enjoyed lunch with their daughter, son-in-law and grandchild, wee Callum

• Joined the Deeleys and the Frames on a train to Edinburgh where Inspector Jamie led us on a tour of St. Leonard’s Police Station and an interesting perspective of the city

• Hired a car

• Drove to the Culloden Battlefield, site of the last major land battle on British soil, where Government troops defeated the Jacobite army in 1746, altering the history of the clans in Scotland

• The Highlands are beautiful

• Spent two nights in Oban

• Took the ferry to the Isle of Mull and a brief stop in Tobermory

• Returned to Oban for the tour of the Oban Distillery, ending with a wee dram

So, let’s go to the videotape and the highlights:

• Even for someone who doesn’t golf, The Royal and Ancient Golf Club in St. Andrews was impressive

• For you Trekkies out there, Linlithgow is the home town of Montgomery “Scottie” Scott, the irascible chief engineer of the Enterprise on Star Trek. He will be born there in 2025.

• Before condemned prisoners were transported by horse and wagon from Edinburgh Castle to Grassmarket where they were executed, they were given a last drink and then gave us two expressions, “One more for the road” and “On the wagon.”

• A free dram, a free Glencairn glass, a discount coupon for £3.00 of a bottle of Oban whisky, and a tour? At £7.00 the best tour value in Scotland.

• After 450 miles covered in three days behind the wheel of a Vauxhall, I am a bit more comfortable driving on the “wrong side of the road”…just in time to return to San Diego next week.

We have a week of “last things” before us. Tonight our last Friday night visit to Jelly Hill. Tomorrow we are guests of the Brodie family for a Scottish night, featuring haggis, neeps and tatties, Cullen skink, song, and bagpipes. Tuesday we’re hosting a thank you dinner for some of our friends at Stravaigin 2. A last jaunt to Edinburgh and a stroll through our environs for some photo opps.


Business note: We hired our cars through Enterprise. The model translates very well here. The same clean-cut recent college graduates, same courtesy, thoroughness and cleanliness of vehicles and location, same opportunities for rapid promotion for the go-getters.

The World's Most Interesting Urinal

At the outset we must know how the Scots pronounce "urinal", not "your-in-al" as we do but "your-eye-nal", and yes the long "i" makes all the difference.

On the Wednesday that saw the final day of group play in the World Cup for Group C, England against Slovakia and USA v Algeria, I went to visit Tom Brodie.  Not to be unsocialable I accepted Tom's offer of a wee dram.  The sun was over the yardarm as we said in the Navy, and it was past noon, even a bit past 1:00 p.m.  I distinctly remember asking my host for a wee dram, emphasis on the wee.  Tom's definition and mine are seperated by a factor of four.  Tom regaled me with tales of his early days in the label business, working for an America boss, whose catch phrase, "Do we have a problem, friend?" has become our unofficial greeting.

From there to Jelly Hill to meet Callum and John, my running mates for the afternoon.  We hopped a cab to City Centre and entered The Griffin.  There we joined John's friend John, and his son, Johnny, an actor.  A couple of Guinnesses, some crisps, suffering under the shrill announcing of the BBC commentators, and a rather lackluster 1-0 win for England rounded out the afternoon.  The pub owner offered me a seat in his office to watch the USA game, a much better match as it turned out...with Landon Donovan propelling the team to the top of the group and the knockout round with an injury time goal in the 91st minute, but I chose to remain with my mates to cheer against England in a show of solidarity.

My friends then took me to two authentic, old-time Glasgow pubs.  The first was McPhabbs, where I retreated to an Irn Bru.  This is NOT a local beer, Irn Bru is the orange-colored (orange-coloured?) soft drink that outsells Coca-Cola in Scotland.  It tastes like bubble-gum.  I'm sipping some now, causing me to muse about an Irn Bru 12-step program when we leave.

Then it was another taxi ride to The Lismore.  The pub's theme is the Highlands Clearance, a dark nineteenth-century social engineering program that led to the destruction of a way of life, the deportation of thousands to the United States, Canada, and Australia, and the primacy of sheep over humans.  The pub boasts about about 125 single malts, and the young lady behind the bar, regaled by my mates about my quest to drink my way throught the single malt alphabet, found a whisky that began with an "R", Rhosdhu.  I was already sipping a Tobermory.  Callum kept urging me to go to the urinal and after a fashion I went.

The urinal, one of those stainless steep troughs, boasted three separate areas, each featurning a short biography of a villian of the Highland Clearances.  I held my water, read the bios, selected the most worthy candidate and did the business. 

Only to be interrogated upon my return.  Who did I piss on?  "George Granville was and English peer, landed gentry, so he was operating out of his own self-interest," I answered.  "Colonel Fell was a military man, following orders, but Patrick Sellar, that bastard, had a choice.  He turned on his own people and, acting as Granville's factor, helped clear the highlands.  I pissed on him."

Evidently the right choice. 

There were a few more rounds to round out the evening.

A word on the World Cup:  An unexpected benefit of our visit has been watching the World Cup in a football crazed society.  Not "soccer" as we call it in the USA, but football.  It has been extraordinary.  The Scots, nearly to a person, cheer against England.  The most popular tee-shirt (I bought one and wore it to the pubs under my USA tee-shirt) is "A.B.E.  Anyone But England.  South Africa 2010."  To plumb the depth of this enmity you need to delve a bit deeper than the apparent history and listen to the commentaries on television and the reporting in the newspapers.  Talk about "homers"!  The English press is beyond rabid, they are demented.  The expectations are outsized and have proven to be unrealistic.  The analysis is painfully indepth, the level of scutiny microscopic.  No detail is too small to be painfully probed.