Fiddler’s’ Whisky Glazed Salmon Salad. Delicious

When visiting Jon Beach last summer and after a day of ‘work’ at the local brewery, I was back at Fiddler’s for lunch a lot earlier than anticipated.

The day of work didn’t consist of much, since their equipment was full and waiting on a local farmer to come collect the spent barley. They have a small trailer to get rid of that and it was full. The farmer had missed an appointment and that meant the brewery was silent for a couple of days. I only cleaned some kegs before they didn’t have anything to do anymore.

Anyway, back at Fiddler’s after a nice lunch of whisky glazed salmon Jon took me back to his whisky room. Or, whisky-gathering-pile-encompassed-by-four-walls, as you could describe it at the time. He had set up a challenge for me: putting the right bottle with the right glass. This was the first glass:

Queen Margot 8yo

Sniff:
Light, thin and typically a cheap blended whisky. There is a tinge of peat but you have to strain to find it. Some vanilla, and a tiny bit of oak.

Sip:
Gentle with sweet vanilla, wine gums and other sugary stuff. A really high percentage of young, watered down grain whisky, I’d say.

Swallow:
The finish isn’t too bad actually. Some sweetness, vanilla and a gentle ‘refill sherry’ thingy going on. I guess that last bit is actually not true, since this bottle will probably cost you € 15 or so.

To be honest, I expected this to be much, much worse. It’s a dead giveaway that this was the blended whisky in the line-up for the afternoon. All the markers are there: young, watery, simple flavours and not much depth.

Then again, I could have done much worse.

Queen Margot 8 years old, 40%, Lidl. It’ll cost about £ 13.