Talking of £30 bottles of champers my mate used to be a bar manager at a hotel and those bottles of Dom Perignon that every restaurant/hotel sells for £150 he would buy in for £30 a pop from the wholesalers! Talk about some chuffing profit margin there.
If your wife likes Gin,try HENDRICK'S. Quite expensive,but incredibly smooth. Of course you must serve it with a slice of cucumber. And for all the red wine lovers out there Aldi's (of all places) do a great Malbec. Argentinian,costs about £4 a bottle and is perfection.Won loads of awards in the taste tests. Was compared to wine that that costs 4/5 times as much
Not quite sure why you say that. Even 7 years ago when I worked in food PR, Aldi food and drink won the Observer food monthly blind taste tests more than any other supermarket. In Germany Aldi isnt seen as a 'cheap, low quality' retailer at all, it just took the British public a while to catch on.
Aldi realised the trick of no-frills coupled with limited stock items. They stock mainly affordable dross and pepper it with a few decent quality lines. Similar quality can be found as loss-leaders in most supermarkets, it is the affordability that no-frills brings that stands it out from the crowd.
Went to Aldi last night. Got a 12 pack real ale hamper, plus a couple of other ales individually I liked the look of. Bottle of Merlot. Bottle of Shiraz. Two 6 packs of German lager. Some individual German pilsners, Berlin or something. My brother is assembling a real ale and continental beer hamper for my present, so I'm sorted. My girlfriend as got Prosecco, Baileys, Malibu, gin, rose wine and other such more feminine stuff. Merry Christmas.
Now THAT I am envious of! Best I have is an Ardbeg Airigh Nam Beist, (2008 edition) which I bought over 3 years ago. Worth about £250 now and gradually increasing. But I still plan to drink it one day unless it reaches a value where it could pay off my mortgage.
I find most people who claim to hate whisky are basing their opinion on one experience of downing a bottle of Bell's, (often mixed with Orange) before puking everwhere.
Many many years ago I necked about 12-15 double Bell's and orange at the infamous Discotheque Royale's in Manchester. Vague memories of collapsing and being dragged out by a couple of Bouncers. Took a few years for me to dust myself down and develop a taste for the good stuff! Nah, the ultimate stuff is Tesco's Value Whisky - the one with a plain white label.
Actually Famous Grouse as blends go is one of the better ones as it's main malt is The Macallan, problem is that the taste is destroyed in most blends by the addition of cheap tasteless grain spirit. If you want a blended whisky to start on look for one that is a blend of 100% single malts, you can then start to appreciate the subtle differences between Highland, Speyside, Lowland, Island (Islay, Arran etc) The best blend I have ever tasted was released by Glenfiddich (by accident) called Snow Phoenix...a result of blending various vintages of their malt after the roof collapsed under the weight of the snow & would have ruined the whiskies if not bottled
I've never been a big fan of blends either. The only ones I've liked are Johnnie Walker Gold Blend, (which is based on Clynelish - one of my favourite distilleries) and Chivas Regal 18yo. The only problem with these is that it is far too easy to glug them very quickly.
I like most of them, to be fair, my sense of taste and smell has been much reduced over the years and nowadays I tend to 'fire for effect', which has led to some fun nights, days and nights . . .
