There’s a thing that happens when you slow down enough to actually taste something. Not just drink it — taste it. The peat, the salt, the ghost of an oak barrel that held something else twenty years ago.
In 2016, I traveled to Scotland with my dad. It would have been his father’s 100th birthday year. He had been born in Brechin Scotland in 1906. We decided on a trip to visit the town and catch a football match - the team in Brechin was established in 1906. It was a good trip. We stayed in Edinburgh but rented a car for the drive to Brechin where we explored the town. We took in a Brechin game played in Livingston. Brechin City FC lost but for a couple of hours we sat among the Brechin fans. Ate some greasy pies and cheered. The highlight though is sitting in the lobby bar of our hotel. We each had two drams of whisky - proper peaty ones. That’s my favorite whisky. I have no idea what we drank but the company was good and we were in Scotland.