Some readers may have picked up on the fact that I do like the occasional dram of uisge beatha.
Nothing wrong with that, I hear you say. The shocking news is that I am not quite so keen on it right now. That does have something to do with the fact that a doctor told me that it is not particularly good for me to have more than a very few. A doctor said that? You don’t say, Maciver?
The problem is that more than one nip can make me a bit sick. It is very rare for a doctor to suggest you change one poison for another, but that’s what happened a while back.
The quack asked if I had considered, apart from at New Year, summer solstice and big birthdays, having a wee tot of rum instead of whisky. Ach, well now, doctor, I’ll give it a wee try, just for you.
Guess what? No sickness. With water, lemonade or blackcurrant cordial (because I remember the 1970s) or just neat, no queasiness at all. Which is just as well, as I’ve been gifted a big bottle of very fine rum from the deep south. No sender’s label on it, but I suspect Mrs X has something to do with it.
Costa del Barra
As it was our anniversary yesterday, I recalled recently how she made me substitute our planned honeymoon in Spain for another romantic destination.
“Spain? No, not Spain. I want to go to Barra,” she wailed, incessantly. I caved in, lost my deposit, and instead we spent a glorious week in Sheila Mcintosh’s cottage in the Barra sun trap that is Brevig.
The adventurous spirit of the people from Barra have inspired our story, from the early 1900's when brave sailors took sail to find their dreams elsewhere & to the courageous people that have helped shape Barra to what it is today. https://t.co/TCyxKH3XKZ pic.twitter.com/RzNak1QhNo
— Isle of Barra Distillers (@BarraDistillers) July 12, 2022
I did cause herself an upset when she was gasping for a coffee and I put gravy granules instead of coffee granules in her mug. Not the best start to married life.
Well, the red label on the Bisto jar was ever so similar to the label on the Maxwell House jar. Did I say sorry? Only about a million times.
Now they have a distillery on Barra which makes a fine drop called Island Dark Rum. It is not so dark, actually. It looks like a peaty whisky.
Founders Michael and Katie Morrison use carrageen seaweed as a botanical, as well as coconut, cardamon, cloves, lemon, and orange peel. I suspect its arrival in this house could be a reminder from herself that it is time to go back to St Barr’s Island. OK, soon.
Monday, Tuesday and WTF
Soon we’ll have a new prime minister, but not as soon as we thought. Not since the demise of Margaret Thatcher was there such a build-up of pressure on a prime minister. Something had to give. It was some week.
I have only just realised that the paper towels by each petrol pump at the filling station are for wiping away tears after you’ve filled your tank
We got through Monday and Tuesday and then it was WTF. Government ministers and advisers were jumping ship by the hour. It was only a matter of time before… bang. It took 50 heads to roll before the newsflash he was going to quit.
Little did we know, Johnson was going nowhere fast. He had only quit as party leader. We had all thought only a party leader could be in No 10. Nope, he’s staying – probably until September.
No successor is oven-ready. Labour apparatchiks jumped onto a bid for another vote of no confidence. Snowballs in that very hot place have more chance.
Meanwhile, the cost of living crisis spirals even further out of control. Ofgem has just warned of even higher energy price rises than they had predicted. And as for fuel, I have only just realised that the paper towels by each petrol pump at the filling station are for wiping away tears after you’ve filled your tank.
A long line of wimpish wannabes
The long line of wimpish wannabe PMs are already promising tax cuts with no word on how they are to be funded. Sajid Javid is even promising to cut the National Insurance rate, which he himself as health and social care secretary had just brought in and was due to implement. You couldn’t make that up.
Liz Truss just managed to get her bid in later than the others, apparently. The actual truth is that it was all pre-planned, as her campaign website was registered and set up a month before BJ quit.
It’s enough to drive you to drink, and I have a wee rum to raise to the end of yet another column. Yum. That mellow taste brings me back to a couple of decades ago, after I realised how fine a drop of rum was.
One summer evening, I rushed into the public bar, now long gone, at the Cabarfeidh Hotel in Stornoway, before last orders. I asked the barmaid if she had something very cold and full of rum. She said: “Oh, yes. Come, let me introduce you to my husband.”
Iain Maciver is a former broadcaster and news reporter from the Outer Hebrides
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