Whisky tasing in London

But not at Ponti's Italian Kitchen which is where this shot was taken.

I did get a picture of me whisky tasting and of the whisky and cheese all laid out for the tasting, but none of those pictures came close to this one for atmosphere. It just reminds me so much of an old American diner.

Anyway, back to the whisky tasing - a fantastic experience. The four of us (Andrew, Toohey, Diana and myself) all had a drink and bite of lunch in the Capital Hotel (venue for the whisky tasting) first. The table was then set for the whisky tasting with 3 glasses of whisky lined up behind 3 different cheeses. There was also a tomoto relish, pickled celery, sliced apple and bowl of cinnamon on the table. Cesar, apparantly the UK's youngest keeper of the Quaich then gave us an interesting introduction to whisky in general explaining the differences between Scotch, Irish whiskey, rye whiskey and bourbon. He then introduced us to our first whisky and left us to enjoy it with the goats cheese. This process was repeated for the 2 remaining whiskys. Of the 3, the 2nd was easily my faviourite, a 12 year old single malt that goes through an unbelievably comlex process before it is bottled. The 3rd whisky was peated and smoked and not really to my liking.

Dinner at Ponti's which was nice but I was really too full from lunch to enjoy it properly, not that I let that prevent me from eating 3 courses and drinking half a bottle of red wine :-)

On to the theatre where we saw The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time from what was described as the balcony but felt like the ceiling. Diana and Toohey who were at the very back had to duck down to see certain parts of the stage and could probably have done with oxygen masks as the air was so rare at that altitude. A really good adaptation of the book and possibly one of the cleverest sets I've ever seen in a theatre. the way they create the scenece where the lad travels from Swindon to london to see his mother is very clever.

Really need to visit the old smoke more often - it is after all just 30 minutes away!