WHISKY LIVE FESTIVAL

I was invited by Brandhouse to join them at the Whisky Live festival to experience their Whisky Sensorium.

I am by no means a whisky expert, in fact I know/knew very little about it. I am more of a brandy drinker. 

So I decided it was about time to enter the world of whisky.

The Sensorium was divided into 4 “worlds” of flavours and the whiskies obviously categorised accordingly. 

Fresh. Rich. Vibrant. Bold.

For the amateur (me) this was very helpful to get a good overview of the different whisky styles and to figure out which whiskies fits where.

Another thing I enjoyed about how they presented their whiskies was the fact that they paired the blended whisky with the leading single malt of that blend. Let me explain, you’d taste the Johnnie Walker Black Label and then taste the Caol Ila single malt which is the lead whisky in the Black Label blend.

Similarly the Johnnie Walker Red label’s leading whisky is Talisker, the leading whisky of Bell’s Special Reserve is Singleton. 

So if you enjoy the popular whisky blends but want to move into the world of single malts then a good place to start is to find out what the lead whisky is in your favourite blend.

A few other random whisky facts:

• Unlike wine & brandy, you are advised to add a bit of water
• Bells Special reserve is the best value for money whisky blend (so I was told but I now agree)
• White Horse is actually a great whisky (contrary to popular belief and what the branding suggests)
• Whisky is the result of the distillation of base beer
• The year on a bottle of whisky indicates the youngest barrel that went into that bottle

Hieronymus Brunschwig, 15^th century doctor and distiller on making whisky from beer: It is “the separation of the gross from the subtle and the subtle from the gross…to make the spiritual lighter by its subtlety”

CAN I HAVE SOME BEAVER BUTT ICE CREAM PLEASE?

If you are still not convinced that buying the original ingredient is better than buying the processed version, maybe this will change your mind...

You thought vanilla flavouring came from processed vanilla pods? Think again...

STRAWBERRY PANA COTTA

Four Cousins introduced 2 new liqueurs, a Marula fruit cream and a Strawberry cream, and asked a few food bloggers to invent recipes using either of these liqueurs.

I decided to make a strawberry pana cotta. This was my first attempt at a pana cotta and it is really quite an easy dessert to make plus you can make it in advance and leave it in the fridge until you're ready to serve up.

Ingredients

1 cup cream

1 cup milk

¼ cup sugar

1 cup Four Cousins Strawberry Cream

1 tbs gelatine powder

2/3 cup greek yoghurt

250g fresh strawberries

3 tbs icing sugar

1 tbs lemon juice

 Instructions

Heat the cream, milk and sugar in a pot and stir regularly until the sugar has dissolved. Take it off the heat just before it starts to boil.

Add the gelatine and give it a proper whisk so that the gelatine dissolves.

Add the strawberry cream and let it rest for a couple of minutes.

Now stir in the yoghurt and pour into moulds / ramekins and place in the fridge until set

(a good couple of hours at least).

Cut the strawberries into halves or quarters depending on their size.

Put the strawberries, icing sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan over medium heat and keep stirring until it becomes syrupy.

To remove the pana cotta from the moulds, dip each mould into a bowl of warm water for about 10 seconds (just deep enough so that the water doesn’t flow over the top) and whack it between your hands until it starts to loosen from the mould. Now turn it out onto a plate.

Pour the syrup and strawberries over each pana cotta and serve. 

Disclaimer: Whenever I am using products that were sent to me for review or blog posts that are part of a competition, I will disclose it at the end of such a blog post. No hidden agendas or product propaganda. This blog post was written in response to the Four Cousins invitation to showcase their new products.