I’ve been working hard on Castle Killing, a book that starts with a murder in Wales and moves on to Scotland. I had to research Scotch whisky ratings so that I’d know what Jill Quint and crew would enjoy in a bar in Edinburgh in the storyline. I decided that while writing the remainder of the book (the final 53,000 words) that it would be helpful to have a single malt Scotch to fuel my imagination.
So while I was in Costco, I picked up a bottle of Laphroaig Single Malt 10 year old whisky. The Los Angeles Whisky club gave it a B+ rating which means it’s “Great and you definitely want to own it”. I’ll have to say (me being an extremely untutored drinker of Scotch!) that I thought the first taste was magical. Up to this point I haven’t got the attraction of a single malt Whisky, now I can see I’ll enjoy drinking this while I write the remainder of the story, or at least part of the time I’m writing since my most productive hours are 5-7am Pacific Time, which is of course, 1pm in Scotland. Perhaps I’ll try the Scotch at the early hour and see what happens to my writing day (something even Hemingway would have frowned at).
Along with the bottle comes the opportunity to own one square foot of Islay Island (off the southwest coast of the Scottish mainland) which I applied for and they’ll be sending me my ownership certificate in the mail. How cool is that! It’s rather like the Green Bay Packers - instead of owning a square foot, I owe one share of stock. So imagine my resume - NFL Team Owner and Landowner, Scotland! The Distillery will even supply me with the right attire to visit my one foot plot including size 12 Wellingtons (Oh no!). I think I’ll be heading to Islay Island in the future, but I’ll bring my own Wellingtons and certainly I’ll enjoy the whisky once I arrive.