Freshly cloven (cleft / cleaved) wood right next to 'cheesy bums' – perhaps different levels of linguistic dexterity. There's engine oil under the car bonnet! NOOOOOO! There's also iodine and then a sponge soaked in iodine, which makes you wonder who in the hell was watching over the sponge / iodine separation project. It's amazing how often crème brûlée tends to come up as a smell, but not always next to anchovy oil. Leather and gorse blossom are also strange bedfellows whereas pancakes and bacon are clearly well known to eachother under the sheets. And if there isn't a threeway on the cards with maple syrup waffles, then I'm the Crown Prince of Badreadingofsituationston.

Think we'd got so far along in this evening's tasting that we'd succumbed somewhat to the jollity, frivolity and quality of proceedings. But fear not! Let's pad this out… The year is 2043. You've been sent to a hospital by the sea with the unfortunate condition of having caramelised your bananas. After the decent run of medical science, it transpired in the late 2020s that actually herbal medicine and alternative therapies were correct, and they swiftly replaced all evidence-based medicine on the NHS. Also, there are now robots everywhere. A robot doctor enters your dormitory and hovers up to your 7th tier bunk bed at the exact micro-second it said it would. "Robodoctor, why don't you have a gender? It's easier to personify a machine if I can give it a name..". Robodoctor looked up for the exact amount of time that was needed.. "Shut up and accept your medicine, huMAN". It looked pleased with its robojoke. With that swift robuttal (ha), a plate was presented with your medicine. Of course! The cure for caramelised bananas is a wee coating of pine resin and a decent shot of Vietnamese snake brandy. Robodoctor immediately went on its way, as you desperately tried to seek assistance with application. "Robodoctor! I have no arms! How can I apply these effective remedies, err, effectively?". It turned around for a micro-second longer than was needed, looked down and softly whispered with a forlorn look on its roboface, "…maple syrup".

Robotic futures aside, this whisky was quite an interesting concept. A blend of just two whiskies, both at least 23 years old: Caol Ila and Invergordon (known as 'Robust Smoky Embers').


A view of the not-so-romantic Invergordon distillery taken from the train.

Having said that, this was the last whisky of quite an involved night, so we were running out of steam. It had a long finish with BBQ sausages, Chinese one spice and salt.

~£45 (70cl)

We've always scored out of 10 in our group (see number in red box, below), with scores regularly given across that spectrum. The value out of 100 below is adjusted to the scale most commonly used for whisky reviews, to allow for better comparison.

80 / 100