Earlier this week, I went to visit my friend Clutch at his home in the seaside village of Burntisland in Fife, Scotland.

We have a whisky blog together (called, unsurprisingly, Dubber and Clutch), we’re co-writing a book about whisky (along with a bunch of other authors), and we’d arranged to visit a couple of distilleries and whisky makers.

Our first stop was a light lunch with legendary master blender Richard ‘The Nose’ Paterson at the headquarters of Whyte & Mackay in Glasgow. After a mini spring roll or two and a few stories, he took us into his tasting room, which was not only a museum of scotch whisky, trophies and accolades through the ages, with a bewildering array of bottles of unimaginable value – it was also the source of a non-stop torrent of stories, places, dates and names. The man is a walking encyclopedia.

Clutch, Colin (our photographer friend) and I were then treated to a tasting of a very special and very rare whisky. I was halfway through my glass before I’d done the calculation that I’d already swallowed about a month’s salary.

We then popped to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, where Colin and Clutch are members, and had a proper lunch and a dram or two with Whyte & Mackay PR guy Rob. This was, as you can see, a more substantial feed. Not a good idea to go tasting whisky on an empty stomach…

Back to Colin’s in Edinburgh for a couple more samples for the book. We sat out in his back garden, overlooking Holyrood House, toasted the Queen (who was in at the time: the flag was up) and watched the sun set over Edinburgh Castle.

In the morning there was time for a stroll around to see the sights of Burntisland, before heading out to visit the Glengoyne distillery. We had been offered a tour of the distillery and warehouse, as well as the chance to make our own blended whisky (about which, more on our whisky blog).

Also on the tour were a couple from Sao Paulo and their (astonishingly patient) young son. The father, Diego, is a business coach and he’s given me his card so when I go back to Brazil (quite soon, as it happens) we can perhaps meet up for a whisky over there.

Clutch and I spent rather longer than we had anticipated at the distillery, and so missed our bus back into Glasgow. As a result, we had to take a much later one, so the man who ran the distillery shop offered to drive us to the pub down the road where we could have a meal while we waited.

It turned out that we had a mutual acquaintance. One of the radio scholars I come into fairly regular contact with – and with whom I spent a good deal of time in New Zealand at the radio conference – was a friend of his. Small world.

Anyway – long story short, we made it back to Clutch’s quite late, and we were due to have an early start the next morning for another three-hour journey to another distillery. Only this time, it didn’t happen. Train delays, weather and weariness all got the better of us, and so we spent day three of our whisky adventure sitting around the kitchen table trying to write about all of the things we’d sampled and experienced.

The trick, I think, is more writing and less sampling. As the day went on, the productivity levels declined and before too long, it was time to catch the train back to Birmingham.

Clutch gives Donnie a ride through the streets of Burntisland

A lovely few days, we actually managed to get quite a bit of writing done, and although we walked away more or less empty-handed (neither of us actually bought a bottle of whisky), we did get to try quite a few very good drams.

And in particular, it was just nice to catch up with Clutch and his family – and spend a bit of time together for the first time since they moved from just around the corner to that rainy country up north.

I was asked by a friend to recommend a whisky to buy for his father’s birthday. I came up with a few suggestions, and thought that actually, since I get asked this quite frequently, I might as well blog it as well, since we’re now on the lead-up to Christmas…

I thought I’d leave aside the regular favourites (Talisker 10, Laphroaig 10 and quarter cask, Bowmore Legend, Lagavulin 16…) and come up with a few specialties. But of course, it all depends on your budget and the recipient’s tastes. From about £35 up, you can get some really incredible special occasion whisky.

I’ve linked to Royal Mile Whiskies – a good place to buy online, but you can find all of this stuff elsewhere, and it may be cheaper if you hunt around.

My recommendations:
If they’d like something really smoky and peaty, then you can’t beat an Ardbeg Uigeadail for about £50. An amazing whisky and definitely on my wishlist.

Mid-range, I’m a big fan of the Longrow 10 year-old 100 proof (£42). Put water in this one – it’s cask strength – 57%.

For about £37, you can’t go wrong with the Isle of Jura 16 year-old. It’s the islanders’ favourite for good reason – and definitely one to be shared with friends. Everyone likes this.

For something more fruity and cakey, I’d go with the Balblair 1989 (with a couple of freebie samples for yourself thrown in for good measure). An absolute bargain for a very good 21 year-old whisky at £44.

Somewhat more expensive (£60) and not quite as peaty as the Ardbeg (though up that same end of the taste spectrum) – my personal favourite, The Lagavulin 1994 Distillers Edition.

Getting up to £85 the Glenrothes 1985 is astonishingly good (fruit cake, marmalade & chocolate). Real artisan stuff.

And amazingly well-priced, but totally awesome – the Aberlour A’bunadh, which is cask strength (60%!) and you’d swear it was made out of raisins. Inexplicably £35 – should be much more.

Finally, while you’re there, do yourself a favour and grab a bottle of King’s Ginger liqueur. £20 a bottle and it is astonishingly great. The taste of Christmas. Good with a bit of whisky splashed into it as well.

There are, of course, lots of other Scotch whiskies that you may enjoy – and plenty of varieties that will make exceptional gifts. These are the ones that sprang to mind when asked. Enjoy.

Last week, I was up in Rothes, which is in the Northeast of Scotland. I flew to Aberdeen from Birmingham – with an unscheduled stopover in Edinburgh because Aberdeen airport was temporarily broken – and then took a 90 minute drive into the countryside and out to the river Spey.

I was there in my role as whisky blogger. The Glenrothes distillery is doing a competition starting in October for four people around the world to win a week working at the distillery, doing all of the things that go into making whisky from beginning to end – and soaking up the local culture.

Sometimes, whisky companies try and engage those of us who talk about this stuff on the internet – and so they cautiously give bloggers the kind of special treatment usually reserved for ‘proper journalists’. And in this instance, with Clutch out of the country, I got a taste of all that.

I got to make a barrel, tour the distillery, learn how to roll the barrels (not as easy as it sounds) and also stayed in Rothes house like a VIP and tasted some very good whiskies and ate some amazing food.

Also, I met my nemesis.

Meeting Dominic
I posted something over three years ago on this very blog about a man named Dominic Roskrow.

He’s one of the world’s leading whisky writers, the former editor of Whisky Magazine… and, much longer ago, a New Zealand Herald and Auckland Star music critic, with whom I never, ever agreed – at first, as a matter of taste, and then, as time went on, as a matter of principle.

And this is what I wrote.

(L-R) Ronnie Cox, Dominic Roskrow and Marcin Miller.

Of course, when you write these things about people you never really anticipate meeting, you don’t actually anticipate meeting them (that’s sort of the point) – and you especially don’t anticipate them having read your blog post about them if you do.

So naturally, when I arrived at Rothes house, there was Dominic – and within the first couple of minutes, he’d put two and two together: “Hang on… I know you. You HATE me.”

Someone had sent Dominic the blog post a while back, and he’d read it. He’d never responded because – well, what would you say?

But the meeting wasn’t unnecessarily awkward – at least I hope he didn’t feel awkward about it. The blog post was, I like to think, fairly benign. If you actually read the post, you’ll figure out quite quickly it’s more about me as a teenager than it is about the calibre and taste of a journalist.

What’s interesting about it – at least from my perspective – is that that particular post was one of my favourite pieces of my writing as a blogger – a craft I like to approach from the point of view of storytelling.

I was quite pleased with the circularity of it, the theme of wanting to be good at something and quietly resenting the fact that there would always be someone who was better at it than I would ever be – and the irony of having it be the same man each time…

Dominic in the flesh
Of course, when you meet someone face to face who has the same interests as you (if not the same tastes), and many shared acquaintances and memories – it’s not a good basis for nemesiship (nemesissery?) – and before very long, Dominic and I got on very well together indeed… which is just as well, really – because on day two, they gave us weapons.

All part of the whisky blogger experience

On Tuesday morning after breakfast (which is a story in itself – and one I’ll relate on the Dubber and Clutch blog), we were taken out for some outdoor pursuits up on the moors. I did clay pigeon shooting for the first time, a bit of archery, which I’d done before (very badly) and some target shooting with long range rifles with scopes.

I was better at it than I expected (and far better than anyone else expected), but nowhere near as good as my host, Marcin who is the PR for Glenrothes and who has no doubt taken many people on similar adventures in his time.

And then, over lunch, Dominic and I talked about New Zealand music – and I learned that we actually had significant areas of overlap. We’re both Shayne Carter fans for a start – and that’s always a sign of a cultured and right-thinking person.

I’m looking forward to meeting up again – partly to continue the conversation about music, but mostly because the man is very good company, and you can guarantee there’ll be some excellent whisky involved.

You can follow Dominic Roskrow on Twitter @WhiskyTasting.

Relaxing is a serious business for Craig & Clutch

Clutch and I decided it would be a good idea to host a whisky tasting in St Andrews during the Golf Open. Turns out it wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t have a good time. Not quite the generator of extra pocketmoney we were hoping for though…

We also have quite a lot of excess shortbread to contend with.

Our friend Craig came with us as our designated driver and dram pourer, and Jake tagged along, as he’s considering studying in St Andrews when he goes to university. He’s even more convinced that’s where he wants to go now – and after our adventure, is extra motivated to get the two As and a B that he needs in his A-levels in order to get accepted.

Glamping in Scotland

The weather wasn’t always ideal…

The four of us stayed in Clutch’s dad’s campervan in a very posh caravan park (with great showers, baths, kitchens, etc) – and somehow, we managed to survive four nights in a tin can the size of your average bathroom without any real fallouts.

The poor turnout for the tasting aside, we enjoyed ourselves immensely. We got to see a lot of the town, meet and talk with all sorts of interesting people, taste some amazing whisky and have enough adventures to make the experience seem worthwhile.

I wasn’t overly interested in the golf, but it was the thing that convinced Craig to come with us. However, you couldn’t really escape it, and it’s fair to say that the old course itself is quite spectacular to look at. We got to see some really good players play some really good golf – and while I don’t get excited about that or know any of their names, I am able to recognise it when I see it.

St Andrews – at a price

Jake outside the Philosophy Department at St Andrews

The town is lovely – really scenic and with some incredible historic buildings, but it’s upbeat and vibrant, with some great cafes, bookshops, and things to do.

We were on a tight budget all round, so grocery shopping and cooking in the campervan were the order of the day – at least for breakfasts – and we were very choosy when it came to dining in town. Tourists were about in droves, and so everything became even more expensive than usual.

Some of the places had covered over their standard menu on the wall outside the restaurant – and had printed up new ones with massively inflated prices on them. We even saw a chicken tikka masala on one menu for £22.

Entertainment for the non-golfers

Off to the movies

Last night, Clutch, Jake and I went and saw Inception, the new Christopher Nolan film starring Leonardo di Caprio. We’d all been looking forward to it, and it was exceptional. By far the best film I’ve seen in ages.

Afterwards we came back, caught up with Craig (who’d been at the golf), had a dram and played a game in which we went through the alphabet finding bands we could all agree that we hated.

The sole rule is that if anyone can come up with any redeeming features or likable songs of the artist suggested, you have to keep trying. It needs to be unanimous. You’d be surprised how hard that is.

Except for G. G is always Genesis.

Heading home in stages

Killing time in Edinburgh

It was a late one, and so cleaning up, packing and heading back to Edinburgh was tough going today. Clutch’s dad was picking up the campervan today, but our train from Edinburgh to Birmingham is tomorrow (saving us £300 between us – don’t ask…) so Clutch is staying at his friend Heggie’s, Jake and I are going to crash at my mate Olaf’s place – and Craig has headed on to Glasgow where he’d left his partner Val, their son Mac – and their two dogs, Dude and Mimi.

Olaf’s working all day today and won’t be home till after 9pm – so Jake and I have had seven hours to kill until we have somewhere to sit down and rest. We’ve been wandering around the city, using free wifi where we can find it, and just hanging out.

We sat on a hill, ate shortbread and listened to Simply Red soundcheck (they’re playing live up at the castle tonight). Interestingly, they were our S band.

Jake’s album

Jake’s been filling his days making music. He’s challenged himself to create a track a day (or at least a good sketch of one) and post it online every day for thirty days, and his learning curve has been incredible.

He’s recording a self-produced album of electronic music for his extended project at college as part of his Baccalaureate, and wants to use this exercise as a basis for the songs he’ll include. The blog posts will contribute toward the critical reflection he has to submit with the project.

Having this time away – especially spending time with musicians (that’s what Clutch and Craig do) – has been really amazing for him, I think.

Leaving one home, returning to another
It was a great few days – albeit stressful and disappointing at times. But we have some stories to tell, which is something.

In our absence, Bobbie and Brendan have been moving house. We’ll be going home to a different place than we left last week. Really looking forward to getting settled in. Lots of unpacking to do.

And before you ask – no, I didn’t plan the trip out of town to coincide with the house move. That one was in the diary first.

Photo by Infodad

So, that’s it then. The end of 2009.

Looking back over the notes, this was a pretty good year, and since I’ve blogged a fair bit of it (though with some significant gaps – must watch that in 2010), I thought I’d do a quick wrap-up of some of the highlights.

But let’s start with a lowlight.

January
Jake got beaten up at school, and we had to go get him checked out at the hospital. Both traumatic and infuriating, but it came at a really pivotal time at that school, and if there’s one thing positive you can say out of that whole event, it’s that there’s one teacher there I now have a lot of respect for – and he’s running the show.

Clutch and I started doing whisky tastings online, and launched Twhisky on Robert Burns’s 200th anniversary.

February
Jibbering Records closed down, which was an end of an era for us. Jibbering was where we met all our new friends when we first moved to Birmingham, and it was the social hub, coffee joint, second office and second home to us Moseley laptop warriors. Still a bit sad about that.

I went to New Zealand to work on an album by Caitlin Smith, speak at a public event and do some interviews for a radio documentary about Zane Lowe. It was a pretty busy week, and I was pretty jetlagged by the end of it – but I did some cool stuff out there, and it was nice to see everyone.

March
To clear my head after so much travel, I went for a bit of a bike ride around Stratford-Upon-Avon.

I also went to a conference in Copenhagen (about jazz, rather than climate change) and another one in Leeds, but I think I was taking a bit of a hiatus from blogging at the time and didn’t record much about either of those events.

However, I did make a little game out of music online by mixing up Twitter and Spotify, getting people to make playlists on a particular theme and then compiling a ‘best of’ album out of it. I know people who still play the Imaginary 80s Romantic Comedy Soundtrack.

April
I went to The Specials’ 30th anniversary concert with my friend Owen who was over from America. Great gig.

Then there was the music industry conference in Helsinki that was so ‘old thinking’ it was farcical. Like ‘Carry On’ farcical.

An article I wrote was published in a very cool book called After The Crunch. The book was a collection of essays by people reflecting on the Creative Industries and how (or whether) they could lead Britain out of recession. Some of my favourite thinkers were included, and it was a really big honour for me to be printed alongside them.

May
Apart from anything else, May was New Zealand Music Month, and so each day that month, I posted a music video by one of my favourite kiwi artists – like The Veils, Dimmer, Sola Rosa and SJD.

I went down to Brighton for The Great Escape – another music industry conference, and Clutch and I went to the island of Jura on a whisky-tasting adventure.

June
At Un-Convention in Manchester I made a music video for my friend Brad’s band Merchandise, and chaired a really great panel called Outside The Box, which featured some very cool people talking about their unusual approaches to the music business.

And then in Groningen, I spent time with my friends Lykle and Ard at their New Music Labs office, consulted a few bands, and then had a bit of an adventure getting back to the UK afterwards.

July
I was (inexplicably) invited to be a guest of the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, so had an amazing time hanging out, seeing lots of great bands and being given countless CDs by some amazing people.

I went to Liverpool, Manchester and Scarborough with Jez, Dr Jazz and Professor Tim, which was a bit of an adventure – and I caught up with some friends (and made some new ones) while I was there.

August
I went to Toronto to speak at an international Radio Conference. It was great to catch up with the guys from my old university in New Zealand as well as see a bit of the city and meet some new friends.

I followed it up with a week in Hamilton, ON – where I hung out with the brilliant guys from Vibewrangler studio, consulted with some very fine local musicians, and even got to go and be a tourist at Niagara Falls.

At the end of the month, Jake received his (very good) GCSE results and we went on our annual family music festival holiday.

September
Didn’t blog much in September. At least – not on this site. I did do an awful lot of project-specific blogging, but none of that ended up here.

The month started in Swansea for another Un-Convention. Then it was off to Berlin for a music industry conference, Scarborough for the jazz festival (which has its own blog that I was one of the main contributors to), and Marseille for Aftershock (another project with its own blog, that I was frantically uploading stuff to).

I also started a blogging project of my own, to take a photo of everything I eat and drink for a year, starting on my 42nd birthday. That blog’s still going, despite a number of people who were insisted that it’d never last more than a few weeks…

And Mum and Dad came and visited from New Zealand. They’d come over primarily to visit their newest grandchild in London, but we got to hang out with them for a week or so, which was really cool – and I entirely failed to blog any of it.

October
Back to Berlin for the NetAudio Conference, which was amazing, but exhausting.

I managed to finally get around to doing an interview with Zane Lowe for the radio documentary, and I posted it online, unedited.

And I came up with an idea for a TV show, which is now in development by a production company called Isis, who are best known for making a series of programmes called Classic Albums.

And then I went to Brussels to keynote a conference about Digital Music. It was my first time in Belgium, and I was only there a little over 24 hours – but I managed to pack a lot into my time there.

Another project that had its own blog was the one we did with UB40, in their campaign to Save The Rainbow (a local pub). That was a lot of fun (and a lot of work) – and it was great to meet and work with Brian Travers, the band’s sax player, on that.

November
Big month. It started with the creation of a new Sunday jazz radio show (of sorts). Essentially, it’s just a weekly Spotify playlist, but I programme it as I would a 2-hour specialist music show.

I went to India with a bunch of people, including my friend and colleague Jez. For the purposes of a general, personal blog like this, there was far too much to talk about from an insane two weeks in Kolkata, Shillong, Delhi and Mumbai – so Jez and I made a separate blog just for the occasion. I did manage to post a very abbreviated round-up of the trip here though.

And as soon as I got back, it was off to Manchester for an academic conference about jazz. Interesting, but still a bit of a come-down after the amazing time in India.

December
Jake played drums in the college performance of Return to the Forbidden Planet, which was great – and his playing has improved out of sight since he’s been performing with other people.

Dad had a significant birthday.

I made my usual efforts at an end-of-year music list – this time, a top 10 albums of the decade, based on how often I returned to them.

I also made the usual New Year Resolutions, but in an unusual way. I’ve already been grocery shopping for my first 30-day adventure – a post-Christmas detox.

Christmas itself was spent in Prague with Bobbie’s sister Kelly, who’s over in the Northern Hemisphere for the first time ever. We saw some amazing sights and had some wonderful cultural experiences, did a bit of shopping and ate some great food.

And that about brings us up to date. As always, I take plenty of photos wherever I go, and you can see them all right here on my gallery page.

Really looking forward to 2010 – if only because it looks like there’ll be a lot more of this sort of thing going on.

Have a great new year yourself. Cheers!

Clutch and I went to the Isle of Jura over the long weekend on a bit of a adventure. All the details are over at the Dubber & Clutch blog, complete with videos and interviews, tasting notes and stories. But I thought you might be interested in some holiday snaps.

They look quite good if you ‘full screen’ them. It’s the little button with arrows on it on the bottom right that appears after you press play.

Clutch and I are off to Jura for the weekend. We’ve been invited to the launch of some new whiskies by the only distillery on the island.

We’re blogging it and posting video at the Dubber and Clutch website, as well as updating via Twitter (@twhisky), if you’re interested…

Clutch came over this afternoon for a couple of whiskies and to play musical join the dots – a game in which I play a song from my collection, then he plays another from his that is connected in some way (the rules are a bit vague). Bobbie was upstairs with the laptop watching something and generally keeping out of the whole thing.

I only had two drinks over a five hour period, and we ate rather a lot of pizza, so I was absolutely fine to drive him home afterwards, which I did.

Like a ninja
I came back inside, threw my keys on the kitchen bench, and sat down at the computer downstairs, where I browsed and emailed for about an hour. My phone buzzed with a missed call from home, and I figured it was playing up again.

A minute later, Bobbie came down the stairs and said “Oh my God – when did you get home?!” I told her I’d been here for about an hour.

“I didn’t hear you come in – I’ve been really worried. I called Clutch to ask where you were. You’d better call him back and let him know you’re okay.

No relation
Clutch is on my phone by his real name – Anthony Cowie. So I quickly typed C-O-W into my phone and hit the dial button.

ANDREW Cowie was in the bath. It was not the first time I’d called him by mistake. Always lovely to talk to him, but it wasn’t who I’d intended to dial. We chatted briefly, and he asked how my pizza had been and whether I was enjoying my couple of days of relaxation (he had clearly been checking Facebook recently).

I left him to it, and then called the other Cowie in my phone. There were sounds of High Street traffic in the background when Clutch answered.

“I’m home – have been for some time,” I said.

“I’m wandering the streets of Kings Heath looking for a smoking wreck. Glad you’re okay.”

The reason I’d dropped him home, of course, was because it’s so freaking cold out there. I didn’t want him wandering around when I could get him home safe and warm. And now he was out there in it, looking for whatever was left to be found of me. Nice one.

All points bulletin
I returned to my email, and it wasn’t long before I received a text from Clutch. His wife Collette is a nurse – and she was about to ring around all of her Admissions friends at the various Birmingham Hospitals to see if I’d been brought in.

So – apologies all around for my inadvertent stealth (and my communications failures)… but it’s nice to know that friends are looking out for me – or if they’re not aware of any potential peril, they are at least aware of my junk food intake and happy to interrupt their relaxing baths to discuss my wellbeing.

Sorry to cause worry.

There’s this sense you get, when you’re talking to someone who knows a little bit more about something you’re interested in, that they have access to something that’s just a little bit outside you’re reach.

Like when you play chess or tennis against someone you know can beat you – but they have to work at it. It’s not a walkover. It’s like – they have something that impresses you, but you know that somehow, it’s attainable.

With just a little bit of practice and a little bit of help, you could do what they do. You could beat you at tennis. Because although you enjoy it, you know deep down that you’d enjoy it that much more if you had just a little skill. It’s not mastery you’re after, but a few of the tricks would go a long way.

That’s where I’m at with the whisky – and the person who’s ahead of the game is my friend Clutch. So I’ve asked him to join me on this blog, so I can reinvigorate it, and start having the conversations about whisky that I love having with him, here in public.

And don’t get me wrong. He’s no expert. He’d be the first to tell you he’s still learning. But he knows a little more than I do – enough to impress me. And there are some people who are just getting started with their first little bit of discovery – and maybe I can be that guy for them.

Whatever your level of whisky connoisseurship, you’re more than welcome here.

If you know your stuff, perhaps you could chip in in the comments, and let us know what you think so we can all learn from you. If this is new territory, perhaps you’ll find it helpful.

So – this is our blog. It’s about whisky. We’re not experts, but we’re learning. Glad to have you along.