johnny walker night

i had gone for training for an event as classy as crystal decanters and long-stemmed glasses - dressed smartly as usual in my short button-up dress topped off with my black jacket.

only i was carrying far too many books (three exercisebookfuls of good honest stuff, from economical articles to GARRISON KEILLOR's witty pieces - and a book by niccolo machiavelli. yes, that scheming bastard) - and a bottle of shampoo.

don't ask me why i had a bottle of shampoo, i just do, okay?*

anyways. so the training went on and we found out aaall about johnny walker and the blue label, how it started and how it's going on, how the blue label has earned it stripes, so to speak.

suffice to say, we had bombarded our trainer (his name's colin) mercilessly with questions. being the indulgent host that he is, however, he answered our questions patiently and with humour, then proceeded to take us out to the bar, where he mixed magic cocktails for the bunch of us**.

the cocktails were especially created with the coming F1 race in mind and sported names like pitstop, yellow flag, suchlike. we sampled these mixes and suffice to say, they're a hit both with the ladies and the gentlemen. we had about six cocktails in all, and these mixes are sold only at six other places (with pretty names like "hilton" and "marriott").

being the bold, demanding chit that i am, i had requested that we have a taste of the blue label with ice water, as colin had so deliciously described when he was enlightening us to the joys and pleasures of the best whisky in the world. and boy, was i glad that i was the bold, demanding chit!

colin had instructed us that the palate needs to be cooled with plain water before it should touch any of the liquid gold - the palate must be chilled. when the whisky touched our tongues, omigosh - the divine flavours i never knew existed - nor ever thought could exist in a whisky - fanned and spread themselves out in my mouth.

whatever the japanese comics had illustrated when the characters tasted good food? those happened to me when the flavours blossomed on my tastebuds. the best bit was when i breathed out - now that's another flavour altogether.

whatever idea i had about a whisky being a man's drink had suddenly become hogwash, sudden enlightenment dictates that the only reason why i had equated whisky to paint-stripping agents was because i was drinking paint-stripping agents.

blue label and paint-strippers? vast difference.


and thus came the end of the evening. colin, as before, was gracious and i was a little sorry to go, but am glad that i am an ambassador of this particular whisky.



* unless you really want an answer. and if you really wanted an answer i would have told you that it's because I BOUGHT A BOTTLE OF SHAMPOO. BECAUSE I WANTED IT.

** comprised of four team leaders in the F&B industry (they've got the know-how as to how to treat a guest right), four of us whisky girls and jackeline, nixon and albert, our minders. ahem. "minders". it makes me feel posh just saying that.