Tales of Wales

I’m often asked what my favorite whisky is, and I always reply it’s the whisky you’re drinking at the time you’re enjoying the moment.  It’s true.  Take, for example, the whisky I had the other night.

Though I’m in India, I brought half a dozen minis with me to enjoy at various points along the way.  A mini is basically a dram, give or take a little.  A couple of nights ago, I was sitting around a campfire along the Ganges River, having just enjoyed a delicious Indian meal prepared especially for me.  I was the only visitor at the Himalayan River Runners private camp and enjoyed a great day of whitewater rafting the Ganges, along with my Nepalese guides and a lad from Manchester, England – Eamon.

Eamon, Vijay (the head of the camp) and I were around the fire chatting about drinks (ranging from whiskies to homemade Nepalese concoctions), when I decided it would be an ideal moment to break out one of my minis – the largest I had, which would give each of us a fair taste.

I chose a relatively unknown whisky from Wales – Penderyn – which the great whisky writer Jim Murray originally turned me onto a couple of years ago.  The sweet, nutty, slightly spicy malt complimented the curry meal we’d just finished.  Soon after starting our sipping, we were offering personal observations about life, family, relationships, and that big-ass rapid that nearly tipped our raft a few hours earlier. 

Do I rush out to buy Penderyn whenever I can?  Though I enjoy it, I can’t say I do.  But for one evening, sitting around a campfire, three men from quite different parts of the world found it to be an unbeatable malt.  And no whisky will ever be better in that moment than Penderyn.