Whisk[e]y on a stick!

On Monday I blogged about "whiskey," deliberating hard in my head about which spelling to use. Both spellings are correct; it's just a question of geography. Refer to a March 2008 blog for a Public Service Announcement about whiskey vs. whisky and other know-it-all facts if you need details. To simplify, a pretty good rule of thumb is that Scotch Whisky has no "e" (as well as Bourbon distillers of Scottish heritage, e.g. Maker's Mark Whisky), and drinks not of Scottish-descent use an "e."


And now a recommendation to those of you who have a whisk[e]y fixation -- not the grammatical fixation, but of the drink itself. If you are one of those people who loves whisk[e]y and wants to hear details of various brands, you'll enjoy this podcast and blog. If you are someone who wants to get into whisk[e]y but has no idea where to begin, you will learn much from this podcast. It's called WhiskyCast, and so far there are over 300 episodes, each the perfect length for a walk on the treadmill (it's like dangling a carrot/bottle of bourbon from a stick in front of the treadmill as incentive).


I met the podcast's producer/star on a sunny day last May, while tuning up my musical saw by a thousand used Maker's Mark Barrels. You see, many bourbon barrels are reborn as Scotch Whisky barrels, and in this case, they were sunbathing on the Isle of Islay. (Redundant nomenclature, but charming nonetheless.) Anyway, Mark was interviewing the Distillery Manager of Laphroaig for an episode, and he ended up recording part of my performance for use in one of his episodes.


I quite enjoy the podcast -- yes, even the ones that don't feature me singing (which just so happens to be Episode 257 "Laphroaig") hee hee hee, featuring "Whisky in the Faucet" of course, but also a "Scotland the Brave" duet on the musical saw and dulcimer (Butch Ross.)


I have many episodes to catch up on, as since my iPod broke, I've been bad about putting podcasts on my phone. Although I just checked and discovered that they have a fancy iPhone/Droid app that would eliminate that problem. Time to get on the treadmill, I do believe.

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