Weirdest place to discuss whiskies??

Well...  after the day I had at work yesterday I certainly felt like I was the statue. I went home with a migraine, exhausted and felt utterly defeated. 

Sometimes my job REALLY gets to me but once home and a little TLC is applied I usually bounce back. Moving on - DING!  

Today is Friday and I really wanted to start off the day on the right footing. Well, that didn't happen and so far this one is going into: the pigeon shit on me phase again!  

So I took a few minutes this morning, made a coffee and went to read a few things on the twitter & facebook machine however nothing struck my fancy there so I clicked on my archives file & read a few old blogs I had posted when Graham and I first started "Perfect Whisky Match". 

I was hoping to find something comforting or funny to cheer me up. It is with great amusement that I clicked on the following and giggled for about 10 minutes - morning saved! So, I'm posting it here and now, hopefully you get a good laugh too! 

Originally published in April 2012, read on if you dare and have a great weekend...  hehe..

Post: I'm not going to go into all the details as I fear some people may poke their eyes out with the mental imaging I may create, HOWEVER: I have just come back from a doctor's appointment as it was time for my yearly "women's" check-up. I went through the motions and assumed the position. 

In walks doctor, I'm advised to "scooch down" and away we go, me with my eyes closed trying to picture myself on a night beach in the Dominican and preparing myself for the duck lips. (Sorry guys...)

You can imagine my complete surprise as the doctor had her hands, errrr full, and said: "So, did I read in the paper you are doing a ladies only whisky tasting on the 20th? I like Scotch from Ireland a lot but haven't tried very many. What are some you would recommend?"

Being the enthusiast I am, I proceeded to answer the 20 questions she had about it as well as provide a bit of guidance and education, i.e Irish whiskey is not Scotch as well as made a few recommendations she should consider.  

All in all, the entire appointment was spent talking whisky while she was busy doing her thing. When "we" were done, she thanked me for the whisky 101 lesson and I thanked her for the maintenance check (for a lack of a better term?!).  I walked back to work thinking to myself, whoa... that was a bit weird?!  

So, I'm curious my blog followers: PLEASE comment on this post and tell me where is the weirdest place you have ever found yourself in the middle of a great conversation about whisky.  

I can tell you that legs up in stirrups staring at the top of my doctor's head during a pap test is certainly at the top of the list for me!

Somewhere on my personal whisky trail giggling... 

Johanne

The people of Knockdhu - Part 2

The "Knock" - courtesy of Dramming.com

My friend Oliver Klimek visited the lovely distillery of Knockdhu in 2011 and wrote this great little article: 

http://www.dramming.com/2011/05/21/dramming-in-scotland-10-knockdhu/

It certainly wasn't as a result oh him writing the piece that put these whiskies on my radar, but once I found them I did scour the websites to see what other people had written. 

I love the fact that this distillery is one of the smallest in Scotland and as mentioned in Part 1, there is no automation. For me it represents a very tight knit group of people who work together closely in the creation of a great whisky. What else could better defines my lovely whisky fabric. 

Ladies & Gents, we continue with Part 2 which is a short profile of: Alastair Legge.

Alastair arriving in style

Alastair, Ali for short, was born in August 1972 and is another of the shift supervisors at the distillery. He along with his brother Fraser who also works at Knockdhu (we will get to him later) were born and raised on the neighbouring farm. Literally "home grown" you could say. Ali started working at the distillery in January of 2007, also coming from a mechanical background (time served motor mechanic) like Alex from part 1. 

His previous job was to maintain and keep a fleet of lorries on the road for a local haulage company. He is married with two kids of their own but he and his wife Jane have also been fostering children for a few years now. Alistair interests are his American cars which he has 3 or 4 of and his dogs. Nine Australian Cattle dogs to be precise which he also breeds. In July of this year he had two litters of six pups each which means 12 little fur balls were terrorising all the big dogs!  

 Ali is a very handy lad to have around since his extensive knowledge of mechanics and welding are a tremendous asset.  

This year, Knockdhu only shut down in July for three weeks. They call it their silent season and it's when the essential maintenance or upgrades get done to the plant not to mention it is when the guys get a well earned holiday. Other than stopping for two more days at Christmas and New Year the distillery is producing AnCnoc for 49 weeks of the year and making 1.8 million litres which is a fair bit more than the 450,000 they made back in 1989 when they reopened. 

So that was shift supervisor #2, stay tuned for the rest of the series in the next few weeks.  

Always learning, always having fun!

Johanne