Billy's Booze Blog

Dark Star Hophead – I rather like hops so this was pretty much always going to be a favourite. I grabbed a pint at The Wenlock Arms the other night, while popping in briefly for a meeting (meetings in pubs are the best). It’s light and golden with a bitter hoppy taste that doesn’t get [...]

After 25 years of visiting Aviemore, one of Scotland’s biggest skiing resorts, it still surprises me when there’s enough snow to ski and not so much that you can’t get up the mountain. This year, however, we were treated to the most perfect snowy weather that I’ve heard of in Scotland – good powder on [...]

I’ve been up in Scotland for the last week and, in traditional manner, had ‘wander around a distillery’ on my holiday todo list. I’ve been going up to the highlands almost every year for the last 25 years, staying in Aviemore a stone’s throw from the River Spey, and have visited a good number of [...]

I don’t make many new year’s resolutions, but I decided this year that I needed to go to more booze tastings. After last week’s Talisker evening I managed to pick up a couple of tickets to The Whisky Exchange’s first tasting of the year – a celebration of Glenmorangie, with Annabel Meikle, their inhouse sensory [...]

I can date the beginning of my love of good whisky fairly accurately to December 1997. I’d been working in my student Union bar for about 6 months and had recently tried single malt whisky, rather than my usual foray into the spirits world of Bells and Coke, and found that It Was Good. To [...]

Christmas is traditionally a time of over indulgence and I am far from being someone who wants to buck tradition (any excuse). There may have been turkey, pies, bologneses and casseroles over the festive period, but much more importantly there has been booze. Here’s what I’ve been drinking:
Beer
My friend Mr Utobeer came through for me [...]

While wandering in the wilds of Islington the other week, trying to find things to fill the time between work and a gig (by the mighty A, supported by some people I don’t remember and the rather good Stars of the Search Party) I did a quick search on the Randomness Guide to London and [...]

Being a whisky fan as well as a lover of scottish beer (of which there are increasingly more and more good examples of) this jumped out when I heard it was appearing – a Harviestoun beer matured in casks that had previously held Highland Park whisky. The SMWS got a few bottles in for general [...]

A while back I bumped into Laissez Fare at a wine tasting and I quickly admitted that I didn’t really have much of an idea about wine. However, in an effort to pull back my boozey reputation, I started rambling about the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, my tongue slightly loosened by the magic voodoo wine [...]

I never used to be much of a fan of the cocktail, equating them all with “screwdrivers” in my head – booze and some kind of mixer that had ideas above its station. However, over time I started to realise that there was a bit more to it than that, all thanks to one drink [...]