In which the four of us are together in the same place at the same time for the first time in years, so we eat, drink, and go looking for another drink…

I neglected to mention, yesterday, that my sister was flying up from (the original) Jersey to join the visit with my folks. Come to think of it, I neglected to mention the visit with my folks. Huh. OK…

The first part of my trip to Scotland was a visit with my folks. Haven’t been to Scotland in 3.25 years, so it was about time. COVID sort of got in the way and all that. Mum turned [REDACTED] this year, and faither turned [REDACTED], so I wanted to spend some time celebrating a wee bit. Pam, my sister, flew in yesteday evening while I was struggling to remain conscious. Everyone was amenable to my preference for a fish supper for my first supper on every visit to Scotland, though my order is always a black pudding supper. Think fish and chips, but with black pudding instead of the fish. Healthy? Oh hell no. Tasty? Not exactly. Effing delicious? There you go!

(I should also mention that lunch after I arrived was two meat pies wi’ Worcestershire sauce that mum prepared, so arrival day was all the delicacies. Didn’t have IRN BRU to wash it all down, so I made do with whisky.)

Since I slept in a wee bittie, I didn’t really fully surface until about 11:00am, so the first part of the day was pretty chill. Breakfast was a bacon roll, which locals will understand is another epicurian delight. I had an appointment with faither to investigate large piles of boxes in the loft, looking for Edinburgh Crystal boxes that I could use to transport home some glasses that I’d ordered. Found the glasses; also found two boxes with other glasses, and I’ll be working out how to get ’em all home on top of my normal luggage.

I’m a huge fan of Edinburgh Crystal, and their Lomond Cut tumblers are my favourite cocktail glasses. Sadly, both of mine are chipped after years of near-daily use, so I ordered a couple off ebay.co.uk to replace them (Edinburgh Crystal itself is no more, so you have to hunt in the wild). What I completely forgot was that faither has a lot of glasses he never uses, including a ton that he won in golf competitions. So we were sorting through boxes of old prizes and awards looking for things. Faither was apparently quite the golfer in his day, and he has the crystalware to prove it. The Edinburgh Crystal (British) pint mugs were particularly impressive. I know folks who would die of thirst trying to lift the bloody things – they’re amazing!

That passed the time, and soon enough it was time to head out for the celebratory dinner we’d planned for the [REDACTED] birthdays. The folks had booked us in at Mar Hall, which is a stunning early 19th century mansion, converted to a Veterans home some decades ago, and then converted to a hotel with restaurant more recently. We got there early, so hit the bar for a couple of drinks, I fancied a Negroni, so naturally they were out of Campari*, but the consolation Old Fashioned was perfectly made so no worries there.

For dinner, I had some fantastic chicken liver parfait with Arran oatcakes and fixings, followed by a duck preparation that was absolutely perfect. The rest of the table enjoyed scallops, sea bass, and steak variously. Wonderful meal, gorgeous setting, I think a success.

When we got home, we rounded out the night with a splash of Mozart Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Liqueur. Yeah, I said that. I’d seen this in one of the duty free booze shops in Schipol, laughed out loud, and decided I had to have it. For those outside the US, when Autumn/Fall hits in the State, so does the pumpkin spice… like a friggin’ tsunami. EVERYTHING has a pumpkin spice option: cakes, coffees, cookies, beer, bicycle tires, air fresheners, tobacco, everything. It’s all based on the most traditional Thanksgiving Dinner pie, the pumpkin pie, which is pureed pumpkin mixed with various spices, predominantly nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and ginger. And they add the flavor, scent, or even occasionally actual ingredients to everything conceivable, and more than a few things that were clearly sent to Marketing as a joke only Marketing has no sense of humor and somehow got it past quality control and into the wild. I swear to the gods that half the country smells (or tastes) like “pumkin spice” for months.

So when I saw this liqueur I decided that this was the perfect way to inflict this upon the family. It poured a slight orange color, smelled exactly like America in the Fall (see above), and tasted… actually, you know, it wasn’t half bad. The texture of Baileys, so that’s what you end up expecting. Which means your system gets a helluva shock. But after that first sip.., they didn’t overdo the spice, and the pumkin flavour isn’t too bad, so they pull it off. I mean, it’s still absolutely a stunt liqueur, but not a bad effort. And, of course, I have ideas for cocktails. Well, I would. but I doubt it’ll last too long.

And so, with good food, good boooze, and entertaining booze in our bellies, we all retired.

*I have this thing where, far more often than should be considered statistically reasonable, a restaurant doesn’t have the thing that I order. They never know that when I place the order, they always have to come back and tell me. This came to a peak in a Memphis Applebees, when I went through this no fewer than three times at the same attempted meal, before I gave up and insisted that the waiter find out what they /did/ have and list that off to me verbally. The manager served our table the rest of the night. I chose not to eat. As a result, I always – and I mean always – pick two things and have a backup ready. I have to confess, however, that this is the first time it had happened with a drink.

Addendum: it happened two nights later as well.