Drink with Me Episode 4: Bruichladdich Islay Barley 2010

We'll be drinking Bruichladdich's truly impressive Islay Barley 2010. Here's how we play the game:

I go and buy a bottle of the whisky I choose (in this case, the Bruichladdich).

You (if you're legal), do the same.

I invite somebody awesome to drink it with me and talk about it, while we drink. You press 'play' on the podcast and drink along with us.  You can't talk to us, but at least we can imagine being together.

In this episode, Murdina ditched me and went on vacation, so I call in the never not funny Arthur, and we get into some mess...and quite a lot of good whisky. Let me tell you, there's nothing like taking down some fine whisky while simultaneously trying to be entertaining and cogent for a podcast to really find out about a person. And that's what we did. The result is, well, you take a listen. It's funny.

And the whisky of course was awesome.

Let's Get this Whisky Party Started...

Whisky is art you can drink! Like art, people have different tastes and opinions, and there's no objective "right and wrong" (although there is such a thing as quality). Also like art, whisky is meant to be enjoyed, appreciated and savored.

Whisky is one of life's true pleasures. You can pound it to get drunk (if you're a Florida State frat boy. No offense, bros.), but that's not really what it's for. It's more than that. Many people don't like whisky, or think they don't and that's ok. Like most great things, it takes a minute to get it.

Photo by twstipp/iStock / Getty Images

But the point is, whisky's not for some elite group, or just guys named Hamish, wearing kilts and smoking a cigar. In my experience, it can be for anybody (of legal age, obviously) who's interested.

Whisky tastes like the land and the water and the air of the places where the barley was grown, the wood of the barrels where the whisky aged. Whisky starts as an idea in a distiller's head and eventually becomes a complex taste of nature and craft, what the old Celts called "the water of life."

My job is to help you love it as much as I do! Your tastes will vary, and I'm more than OK with that. Once, I had the good fortune to spend some time in the Lagavulin distillery, on a tour led by Iain McArthur. We were tasting some really incredible old whiskies, and one of my co-tourists, taking a sip of one of the drams said, "Am I getting a note of coffee in the end?"

Iain, a true whisky saint, looked at the well-meaning Englishman and said, "How do I know? You're the one feckin' drinkin' it, laddie!"

That was the moment of true enlightenment for me. People get particular about the whisky they drink (just as they do wine, beer, coffee and the rest) and that's ok. But the main thing is simply this:

You're the one feckin' drinkin' it, laddie. Or lassie. 

We're here to have fun, drink some whisky, occasionally disagree, and probably say a few things we'll regret tomorrow.

Sound like a party? It does to me. Let's go, my children.