Back At It Again

Life has been rather surreal as of late. One minute I'm in Kentucky, the next in Denver. I was in Las Vegas last weekend, yet Monday afternoon I found myself walking the steps once again to the offices of Hunter Laing in Glasgow. Remind me of how I got here, will you? I've always enjoyed traveling so I don't mind the wear and tear of the jetset lifestyle, but I will admit I've been confused a few times while waking up in the middle of the night, wondering where I am. The trip to the UK has become old hat at this point, however: ten hours overnight to London, just enough of a layover at Heathrow to grab a sandwich from Pret a Manger, then up to Scotland for an early afternoon arrival before settling down to an evening full of business. So far everything is going incredibly well. I had a great seat on the plane, I sat next to a very interesting Lebanese woman and chatted with her for hours, I got to my hotel right on schedule, met up with my buddy DJ as planned, then headed over to meet Andrew, Scott, and their dad Stewart and tasted through dozens and dozens of casks. We found more old grains, more Islay stuff, more values, more rum, more of everything! Why can't life always go this smoothly?

I'm up early, which is normal for my jetlag sensitivities; but I did manage to grab six sold hours of shuteye, so I'm pretty thrilled. We scoped out around twenty potential casks, then celebrated the success with a shot of 1982 sherry-aged Port Ellen before walking over to a lovely Bavarian place called West on the Corner for beers and schnitzel. We ended up ordering more beer along side glasses of Brora 35 at the Bon Accord before calling it a night, but I was in bed by ten and up at four, per the norm. We're scheduled for early activities today anyway, so it's no biggie. Andrew and Scott are picking us up at 8:30 AM for the lovely drive to Islay. You may have heard they're planning to build a new distillery there called Ardnahoe, so we're gonna go check it out. We've got an midday ferry booked. I've got a camera and a computer. They've got a trunk full of Scotch. What more do we need?

I'm gonna go for a run, I think. The cool Glasgow morning is calling my name.

-David Driscoll