I’ve been putting this post off for almost three weeks now. Mostly because I’ve had no idea what to write about this time around. Maybe I should start by reflecting a bit on 2017. A year with big ups and big downs, but those are on a rather personal level, so I’ll not bore you with those.

On January 1st, 2017, I did write a post like this too, and I made some minor plans that are quite funny to read back a year and a bit later:

Of the last bottle share I did with Mezcal, I’ve not tried any drinks yet.

Still the same. I’ve had one glass of Mezcal in the past 12 months, I guess. I like the stuff but, as you might be able to tell from me not drinking it, not as much as I like whisky.

I do think I’ve downsized my sample collection a little bit, which is a good thing. Some had been sitting there for ages, and should have been drunk years ago. Because of our third kid being born in May we had to shuffle rooms and occupation of them in our house. This resulted in me having a wee room for my whisky and other hobby and putting all samples on a shelf instead of in boxes. I even found a sample of Port Ellen and a Brora! I completely forgot I had those…

Since the summer of 2016 I’ve restarted playing Magic: The Gathering and that’s been picking up a bit of steam in 2017 too. Since that happened I am dividing attention between whisky and that a little bit. This results in me not spending as much on whisky and not spending as much attention on whisky either. The not spending attention has gotten me out of the loop of some releases and events, but since there’s stuff happening on a daily basis I don’t think I really mind.

Another realization I made in 2017 is that I’m spending too much money on beer (yet again). I really love beer, but with a bottle being drunk in one go, it is a hobby just as expensive as whisky. This results in one of my few New Year’s Resolutions: buy less beer.

I checked my Untappd profile and found that I have had 400 unique NEW beers in 2017. That means I spent a couple of bucks on a bottle of beer every single day of the year, and then some. With the amount of beer I still have lying around and the amount of whisky that I plan to taste/drink, this is quite ridiculous, so I’ve set a goal of not having more than 250 this year. That should make quite a difference, I think.

To summarize all of the ramblings above, what I’m going to try and do in 2018 is experience more and spend less. I’ve got a boat load of whisky, beer and other booze. Let’s try to go through that a bit more before I start spending on more of the same all the time. Finishing bottles from my shelves. Opening what I already have instead of buying new. Actually checking which beers are good for drinking that I’ve been storing in our crawl space for a while. Things like that.

Oh, and go to Scotland a few times. I can’t wait for April!

Some other findings from 2017:

• BrewDog’s Lone Wolf products are a deception, so far.
• I don’t like Sake
• The Whiskybase Gathering is awesome
• I should spend more time in Scotland for the country