So, this year starts with the obligatory post with new year’s wishes and some resolutions (1600×1200 will do nicely, so that tedious joke is out of the way too).

Last year did not really go out with a bang since both kids had a rather tenacious cold that prevented us from visiting friends and boozing with those folks. What we did instead is put them to bed early and had some whiskies with my father in law. We ended up drinking some high quality booze in the form of old Springbank 21, Lochside 1981 and Sazerac 2013. This just to make some folks jealous, and make me feel less bad about having to change our plans.

Anyway, in good tradition of the internet and the less digital world before that, we’re doing New Year’s Resolutions. With that comes the annual look back to the old resolutions, and that’s what’s going to happen first.

The old list of thing that I wanted to do in 2014:

1. Bring down my amount of open bottles from 92 to 65. DONE!
2. Host a Bottoms-up Tasting and the 4th Blog Birthday Bash. DONE!
3. Go to Hielander Whisky Festivaland Maltstock. Maybe also to Whisky & Rum aan Zee. Partially DONE. I did go to the Hielander and Whisky & Rum aan Zee festivals. I didn’t go to Maltstock.
4. Visit the Whiskybase Shop, and Van der Boog.
5. Visit Brouwerij De Molen.
6. Organize a trip to Speyside with some friends.
7. Brew some beer.
8. Do at least one Bottle-Share. DONE!
9. Stick to my budget. In a way at least. I blew through my budget quite quickly, but with selling quite some bottles in the last couple of months, I think I kept it within means.

So, what happened with the things that are not done on this list? Anneke’s pregnancy, that’s what. We found out late last year that this was the case and that we would be expecting our second kid somewhere in August, if things went all right. They did. This meant not many trips anywhere, including Scotland and Maltstock. Scotland was a financial hassle this year, and Maltstock happened three weeks after Moos was born, so that was simply out of the question.

Brewing is the only one I don’t have an excuse for. I just didn’t give it enough priority to get it done. I should have been able to. I had all the equipment and ingredients lying around, but I just couldn’t be bothered with it at the time. I did regret it every once in a while, mostly because I didn’t want to be spending huge amounts of budget on beer.

So, on to the new year then!

My resolutions that have something to do with booze and this here blog are quite similar to last year’s. Or, I have talked about them before in, for example, the amount of open bottles post and the review of Distilled. These ones are at least:

1. Bring down my amount of open bottles from 65 to 40.
2. Host the 5th Blog Birthday Bash.
3. Go to Hielander Whisky Festival
4. Go to Maltstock.
5. Go to Whisky & Rum aan Zee.
6. Visit the Whiskybase Shop.
7. Visit Brouwerij De Molen.
8. Organize a trip to Speyside with some friends.
9. Brew some beer.
10. Do at least one whisky Bottle-Share.
11. Do a bottle-share with Mezcal, preferably Del Maguey stuff.
12. Stick to my budget.

Del Maguey’s single village Mezcal

There are some things that could be added to the list if I get around to it, like visiting Belgian Owl Distillery and the Westvleteren monastery/brewery. Those have been on the wish list for quite a while but I never seem to get around to them. Now I already know I’m going for a weekend in Belgium twice the coming year, maybe even three times. This means there should be some options to fit those in.

Apart from what’s on this list, there also are the regular non-booze things on my personal agenda, like finishing about a million different chores in and around the house. Go on a holiday and some weekend with the family, and one with the misses (Venice, baby!)

And then there are the other booze related things that are not even on the list but are going to happen. Like there are at least two tasting at De Whiskykoning, there are the regional tasting for the Usquebaugh Society and quite some other events. These events will most likely have to do with the 25 year anniversary of the whisky club. Pretty cool, if you ask me!

I’m also going to host a tasting at work again, like last year. I’m also going to be in charge (read: responsible) for the timely delivery of four editions of our club magazine. Then there’ probably a couple of things I’m not even remembering at the moment.

All in all, it’s probably going to be a nice year if things go anything like I’ve planned, even if I only can tick off half of my plans come December. I’m looking forward to 2015!