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Well, it’s Christmas Eve and the last day of my wee 12 Days of Christmas Tenuous Drinks links so I thought I’d push the boat out and try for quite a long winded, 6 degrees of separation type link to our 12 Drummers Drumming so here goes; Drums are not of European origin, in fact the oldest known drum was discovered in Egypt. Egypt is home to the famous port city of Alexandria. Alexandria is also the name of a town on Loch Lomond. Loch Lomond whisky was a favourite of Captain Haddock, created by Herge. Herge is Belgian. His main character, Tintin, had a dog called Snowy. Snowy is also a type of Owl. So, drumroll please, day 12’s tenuous link drink is a dram from the Belgian Owl Distillery (which incidentally got its stills from Caperdonich, which was our tenuous link drink on Day 7). I hope you’ve enjoyed our alternative Christmas countdown. All the remains is for me to wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year when it comes!  On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, my True Love sent to me;
Twelve Drummers Drumming (and I drank Belgian Owl Whisky) Eleven Pipers Piping (and I drank Hilden Ale) Ten Lords a Leaping (and I drank Gordons Gin) Nine Ladies Dancing (and I drank Bacon Infused Bourbon) Eight Maids a Milking (and I drank Sex on the Beach) Seven Swans a Swimming (and I drank Caperdonich) Six Geese a Laying (and I drank Dumbarton) Five Golden Rings (and I drank Macallan Gold) Four Calling Birds (and I drank Merlot) Three French Hens (and I drank a pint of Old Speckled Hen) Two Turtle Doves (and I drank Raki) and a Partridge in a Pear Tree (and I drank Mulled Cider) Slainte!
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We are approaching the end of our wee Christmas countdown and Day 11 brings us Eleven Pipers Piping. Whisky springs immediately to mind as you’ve got that old classic 100 Pipers blend, or, the most widely sold whisky in the world, Bagpiper (which despite the name is actually made and consumed in India! And despite being branded as a whisky is actually made from molasses so technically more rum than whisky) My inspiration for Day 11’s tenuous link drink though comes from one of the biggest piping events, the World Pipe Band Championships, held every year on Glasgow Green. 223 bands competed in the 2014 event, which attracted some 30,000 spectators. The winners, for the 4th year running were the Field Marshall Montgomery band, from Lisburn in Northern Ireland. Lisburn is also home to the Hilden Brewing Company, so my choice of tenuous link drink for Day 11 is a pint of Hilden Ale. Cheers!  On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me;
Eleven Pipers Piping Ten Lords a Leaping Nine Ladies Dancing Eight Maids a Milking Seven Swans a Swimming Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree Leapfrog anyone? Sorry, I mean Laphroaig of course. That’s the leaping covered, also, Laphroaig has a Royal Warrant which could well give us the Lords’ connection but I’ve got a better tenuous link for you than that! And it involves cricket. Yes, cricket. Lords Cricket ground to be precise, which is widely considered the home of English cricket (and there’s a fair amount of leaping about while playing cricket, isn't there?). And it’s the history of Lords that gives us our tenuous link drink for Day 10; In 1864 the Marylebone Cricket Club purchased the freehold of Lords Cricket Ground for £18,333 using monies advanced by William Nicholson, Chairman of Nicholson’s Gin. Nicholson also funded the construction of the new Lords Pavillion in 1889, in the form of a £21,000 loan. Shortly afterwards the Marylebone Cricket Club changed their corporate colours from sky blue to red and yellow, in what was thought to be a gesture of thanks to Nicholson, whose corporate colours were also red and yellow. Sadly Nicholson’s Gin no longer exists, however Gordon’s export evokes the same colour scheme (in fact the packaging is scarily similar) so for Day 10, a nice Gordon’s and Tonic - anything else just wouldn’t be cricket!
On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me;
Ten Lords a Leaping Nine Ladies Dancing Eight Maids a Milking Seven Swans a Swimming Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree  Day 9 and it’s time to head to the nearest dance floor. To get the ladies dancing, how about a nice Lambrini? After all, ‘Lambrini girls just wanna have fun!’…no?… Must say I probably agree with you on that one. While dancing has been quite a popular social pastime for some time now, prior to the middle ages it was actually considered a sin of the flesh! Sounds like the plot of that classic 80s film Footloose - a film which incidentally features what my husband considers the best film line ever, ‘I drink better than I dance’. A sentiment I can wholeheartedly agree with! The hero of the film is a young Kevin Bacon, who gets the town dancing again and leads me nicely to my choice of drink for day 9 - bacon infused bourbon! I must admit when I first heard about this concoction, my reaction was torn between, ‘Why?!!!’ and ‘Mmmm, bacon and bourbon!’ I’m still not convinced it is a genuine drink but it is so bizarre I just had to include it in my Christmas countdown. Sadly not yet commercially available, (although I did see an April Fools advert for Jim Beam Bacon) this is one to try making at home. All you need apparently is a bottle of bourbon and some warm bacon grease. Go on, give it a try, you know you want to!
 Well, our true love has finally given up on the fowl gifts. (Sorry, I couldn't resist) Not quite sure why you would want milkmaids as a gift either but hey ho, things were presumably a bit different back then. To link to our eight maids a milking, I first of all thought of some kind of milk or cream based drink. The most well known of course would be a Baileys; cream based and generally considered quite a girly drink so would tie in quite well. Alternatively, how about a White Russian? Even better, when looking up a recipe for a White Russian, I found this one for a Christmas White Russian, courtesy of Difford’s Guide once again; 1 shot Ketel One Vodka 1 spoon Robertson’s mincemeat 1/2 shot Coffee liqueur (such as Kahlua) 1/4 shot Gingerbread sugar syrup 1 shot Unsweetened single cream Shake all ingredients with ice and fine strain into a chilled glass. For the traditionalists among you, a classic White Russian can be as simple as equal measures vodka, coffee liqueur and cream, served over ice. Neither Baileys nor the White Russian make my final cut for Day 8 though. When I was researching this, I discovered that in ye olde days, when a maid was asked to go ‘a-milking’ it was considered either a proposal of marriage or a risqué invitation for intimacy. Bit of a difference there! My final choice then for day 8, in the spirit of the indecent proposal going ‘a-milking’ once was… Sex on The Beach!
 Hmm, let’s see, swans? Where can we go with this? Well, the Diageo Flora and Fauna range could be a good start - their bottlings of Linkwood featured a swan on the label. Alternatively, you could try a wee Penderyn Welsh Whisky since the Master Blender there is a certain Jim Swan. It seems that after having no links at all to whiskies for the first 4 days of this countdown, I now can’t get away from it! Let’s have a look at the history then, see if that gives us any alternatives. According to Celtic and British mythology lost loved ones would come back as swans, which had gold or silver chains around their neck to symbolise their enchantment. Swan necks… that’s taken us back to whisky again hasn’t it! Or spirits anyway. I’m just going to have to go with the whisky angle again on this one as the link to swan necks seems too good to ignore. Swan necks then are a feature on all copper pot stills. One of the largest manufacturers of copper pot stills is Forsyths in Rothes, in the heart of Speyside. Part of the Forsyths plant is on the site of what was, until relatively recently, the Caperdonich distillery so for Day 7, let’s go for Caperdonich*! (* Another closed distillery, so if you are struggling to get hold of some, you could always go for some Glen Grant, since Caperdonich was originally known as Glen Grant 2)
Day 6 and we are still on the bird theme, this time geese. The obvious choice for today would be Grey Goose vodka, produced in the Cognac region of France. Bit too obvious though, isn't it. I really feel I need to make you work a bit harder for your tenuous links drink. As well as being a very tasty addition to a traditional Christmas dinner, geese were also honoured for their protective services. (Have you ever been stuck in a field with a load of geese when they all start running towards you? Scary. And noisy. I can see why they were effective protectors) So, on the subject of protective geese - Dumbarton distillery, near Glasgow, was once renowned for having a gaggle of ‘guard geese’ as its site security. There were actually three different types of whisky produced on the one site; Dumbarton grain, Lomond and Inverleven single malt (The Lomond still is now at Bruichladdich). The distillery closed in 2003, but you can still find bottles by the likes of William Cadenhead*, Scotland’s Oldest Independent Bottler. Day 6 then, get yourself a dram of Dumbarton. Might take a bit a tracking down but hopefully worth the effort. *Yes, this is a shameless plug for my husband’s employer. Other indy bottlings are of course available too!  On the sixth Day of Christmas, my true love sent to me;
Six Geese a Laying Five Golden Rings Four Calling Birds Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent to me Five Gold Rings Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens, Two Turtle Doves And a Partridge in a Pear Tree. At first glance, the gift of 5 gold rings seems very extravagant after all the birds gifted on previous days, but apparently the 5 gold rings actually referred to ring necked birds, like a pheasant, which were considered quite exotic at the time of writing. Good to know that the gift giving ‘True Love’ in the song finds a theme he likes and then sticks to it!  So, what are we going to drink today to link in with the Five Gold Rings? Goldschlager springs immediately to mind - it’s even got real gold flakes in it - but doesn’t really fit with the rings. Let’s see…rings…There are 5 Olympic Rings and the aim of the Olympic Games is to win gold medals. The Olympic Games originated in Greece so maybe we should be looking to Greece for inspiration? Possibly the most well known Greek national drink is ouzo (as anyone who has been there on holiday can probably attest to, and, if you are anything like us, probably has a dusty bottle of it at the back of a cupboard somewhere to prove it) but we’ve already had raki as one of our tenuous links drinks so I think I’ll pass on that one.
 On the Third Day of Christmas my true love sent to me Three French Hens Two Turtle Doves And a Partridge in a Pear Tree Hmm, so what to have on day 3 of our Christmas Drinks countdown? As soon as I saw this one I thought of some kind of flip, made with a whole egg, to tie in nicely with the hen part of the equation. Flips are basically made from any fortified wine or liquor, shaken with a whole egg and sweetened with sugar. Given that there are some cracking French spirits around out there, this seemed like the perfect solution! Diffords Guide (always a good source of cocktail inspiration) has a good generic recipe that can be used with your base spirit of choice; 2 shots Brandy/Whisk(e)y/Rum/etc 1 shot Sugar Syrup 1 fresh egg (yolk and white) 1/2 shot Unsweetened Single Cream Shake all ingredients over ice and fine strain into a martini glass. Alternatively, serve hot in a toddy glass - just heat the ingredients in a microwave or in a pan over the stove. Although this appeals to me less, this is maybe the more ‘authentic’ version as the original flips, way back in the late 1600s, consisted of a tankard of ale to which a mixture of sugar, eggs and spices was added before being heated with a red-hot iron poker from the fire. I wouldn't recommend trying that one at home. The subject being 3 French Hens, I would suggest trying cognac, armagnac or maybe calvados as the base spirit. Or why not all 3 to see which works best? It is Christmas after all!
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AuthorWhisky Impressions is run by Kate Watt. Previously at Springbank and then Glenfarclas, I now design some whisky related stuff and write about it, and anything else that takes my fancy, on this blog. Archives
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