The upshot to all of this is positive income! So of course I spent some of that and purchased a bottle each of Tori Amer and Pimm’s #1 the other day. I’ve now finally tried the Pimm’s Cup which is indeed refreshing. I’m looking forward to drinking more. I wanted to splurge and buy a bottle of Laphroaig 15 year which is my favorite scotch, but BevMo didn’t have any. I really need to find a superior liquor store in San Diego, but so far no luck. There’s always shopping online at Hi-Time Wine which has a delightfully ludicrous selection.

Right, time for bed.

As per request, I recently embarked upon playing with the Rob Roy. This drink is very simple, pretty much the Manhattan of the scotch world. Now, I’ve made many a delightful Manhattan, and the proportions normally stay more or less the same. Unfortunately, with a Rob Roy, all such bets are off.

Let’s start out with the basic recipe:

Simple, no? Unfortunately, the cocktail, and especially the amount of sweet vermouth to use, varies highly depending on the scotch. I made the above with Johnny Walker Green and it about blew my socks off. Alas, not in a good way. The peat in the Walker absolutely drowned out the vermouth and I didn’t like the results at all. However, using Chivas Regal (12 year) makes a delightful drink that even Christy enjoys (she’s no fan of the brown alcohol).

While I think there’s a lot of room to play with the peatier scotches, this drink works very easily and very well with a more balanced scotch, which is perhaps why most folks tend to reach for a blend. I’m a big fan of Islay whisky, in fact it’s my preferred region of single malt, I love the peat and salt they often have, but if you’re making a Rob Roy out of one of those you might either want to scale back on the vermouth (basically just adding some accent) or really bump it up so it can compete.

The picture above isn’t one of mine, instead it’s from morgueFiles! Feel free to check out the original.

The point of this diatribe isn’t the weather but rather what to drink. While you’re probably spending this month drinking bourbon (you don’t hate freedom, do you?), fall is also a great time to become reacquainted with that delight of delights: scotch. To help that process out, here are two good links to start the process off.

1. First off, Robert Hess at The Spirit World has written an article all about scotch whisky. If you have the time, look around the other articles on The Spirit World especially Hess’ recent series of articles each covering a different whisk[e]y.
2. The other link is a video, a really enjoyable presentation by Charlotte Voisey called From Glen to Glen – Scotch in the Shaker. It’s a 10 minute video about how single malt scotches are made and it’s worth your time (although I still don’t get the “in the Shaker” bit of the title).

   This video is hosted on the Small Screen Network which hosts a series called “The Cocktail Spirit with Robert Hess.” I am a total Robert Hess fanboy. His other videos are great, usually showing just Hess creating a cocktail. Be warned, however, the theme music that plays at the beginning and end is much louder than his voice, which results in me being blasted out of my chair at the end of every episode.

Recipe #8: Scotch Whiskey Punch

Steep the thin yellow shavings of lemon peel in the whiskey, which should be Glenlivet or Islay, of the best quality; the sugar should be dissolved in boiling water. As it requires genius to make whiskey punch, it would be impertinent to give proportions.

Rob Roy
as made by Julian Gualdoni

• Two shots of Lagavulin 12 year
• One shot of sweet vermouth
• One shot of dry vermouth

Stir over ice with a few drops of angostura bitters.