Unspirited Musings

My keen interest in whisky is known to most of my friends and acquaintances. Not surprisingly therefore, I looked forward to a Scotland trip with much enthusiasm, a lot of which turned out to be misplaced. Make no mistake, Scotland is a very pretty country and Edinburgh is by far the most picturesque city that I have travelled to. The people are warm, full of fun and the eateries/taverns are extremely welcoming. This city seems to have it all. Rich cultural & academic heritage, landmark monuments coupled with bustling and trendy commercial enterprise sans any of the inconvenient trappings of big city living.

However, here is why the whisky lover in me came back disappointed:

- I must have visited nearly two dozen watering holes in the couple of evenings that I spent in Scotland . I had the privilege of witnessing only two gentlemen downing whisky across all of them! Afternoon sojourns to pubs in smaller towns yielded similar results. This, when whisky is fairly reasonably priced compared to beer or wine.

- The range of whiskies on offer would easily be put to shame by slightly upscale bars in any of the metros back home. To add insult to injury, most displays outside pubs only spoke of their beers & wines! So much for Scotland being whisky country!

- I visited "Royal Mile Whiskies", a store with much fan-following the world over, and scores of literature dedicated to it. It was manned by 4 people- 2 Americans, a Finnish gentleman and just one Scotsman (arguably the least knowledgable of the 4). I asked for 5 malts that were top of my shopping list. The store had NONE of them! I did get some good whiskies and the store does have a decent selection of spirits but it comes nowhere close to "The Whisky Exchange" in London and it does nothing to merit the hype it generates in the whisky fraternity the world over.

- I visited another whisky store but even worse was in store. When I asked for special whisky glasses that most single malt enthusiasts treasure, the manager instructed his store-keeper to fetch me some of "those funny-shaped glasses"! (I am convinced he has his whisky with soda)

It can be argued with some merit that Edinburgh is nowhere close to being whisky country and I was better off visiting specific islands steeped in rich whisky tradition. Sure enough it is on my to-do list for the future. But I have returned from Edinburgh with reasonable conviction that whisky drinking is on the wane and perhaps irrecoverably so. Alas, that does not warm my palate.

I owe a big Thank You to my friend Anurag Chatrath for keeping me company as we went pub crawling endlessly. This, despite he being a rather reluctant tippler.