Billy's Booze Blog

It’s the end of the year and it seems that buying booze is towards the top of people’s minds. As such I’ve been hidden away at TWE Towers, poking the website, processing orders, picking bottles and generally running around like the famed blue arse fly of proverb. So, now that I’m sat on the sofa [...]

I am heartbroken – I missed a Whisky Squad, my first since number 4. Through the inconvenient scheduling of The Whisky Show I ended up late at work preparing for a weekend of backbreaking toil rather than sitting around above The Gunmakers surrounded by whisky. Luckily Alan stepped up to the plate and wrote it [...]

Keeping up with Whisky Squad meetings has been more difficult than usual recently, what with there being one every two weeks since the beginning of June. (Un)fortunately I’ve had an intervention of life and work, much of which was taken up with 5 days of drinking different boozes each day last week, filling all of [...]

Hot on the heels of this month’s first birthday Whisky Squad the chaps managed to squeeze in another a mere two weeks later. Offered the back room at The Gunmakers for a larger than usual whisky and dinner affair they took up the challenge and matched the occasion with Diageo’s Colin Dunn, returning for his [...]

As the year draws to a close the season of Christmas parties is upon us. I missed my office Christmas party for the last Whisky Squad (the unblogged #8a, which involved BYOB, chocolate and some impressive drunkenness – Jason managed to write something down and then read it back again, the latter part of which [...]

September flew by a bit for me and shortly after I finished writing up last month’s Whisky Squad another one appeared on the horizon. In honour of the fluffy top lips of a chunk of The Squad this session’s theme was Movember. Whisky Gandalf Darren, the man behind Whisky4Movember and random chap for Master of [...]

Another month, another slab of Whisky Squad related delight Chez Jeff, the lovely landlord of The Gunmakers. This month we were treated to another special guest following in the rather hefty footsteps of Colin Dunn – Rob Whitehead from Berry Brothers & Rudd. Regular Whisky Guy Darren was off recovering from a whisky related sojourn [...]

A bit of a unexpected move by The Whisky Squad this month. Having gone through various high powered single malts this meeting’s theme was to be the whisky snob’s enemy – the much maligned blend. The idea behind this was to help further put down the theory that blended whisky is by its very nature [...]

Having done Islay whiskies last month the Whisky Squad chaps decided to go to what is traditionally the other end of the spectrum for this meetup – summer whiskies. Rather than the peated beasts, supped by the open fire as the darkness draws in (waiting, as we all do, for the ultimate inevitability of death…), [...]

It’s incredible how important one’s sense of smell is when tasting things. I have, of course, heard from numerous people (including my anosmic mate John) about how taste is predominantly smell, with the tongue painting in wide strokes while the nose adds the detail, so it was rather annoying to discover the actual extent to [...]