Tenuous Links Drinks Day 5 - Five Gold Rings

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.

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In fact, it just strikes me that I’ve got to Day 5 of this little blog series and still haven’t had a whisky! This, I feel, must be remedied. So, for day 5, it’s got to be Macallan Gold - not only is it the appropriate name, but the water to produce Macallan is drawn from the Ringorm burn, so it’s a perfect fit really. While you are enjoying your dram, reflect on the words of a certain Macallan marketing buddy who was heard to describe Macallan Gold as ‘the quintessential essence of what is the Macallan’.