Last week, the Monkey called, that’s Monkey Shoulder to you, and asked me to come along to an alternative Burns Supper at The Caledonian Club. I thought we would be celebrating Scottish poet Robert Burns. As I've never celebrated Burns night before, I didn't know what to expect, but knew that I was in for an eventful night.
Not being able to leave work early meant I arrived an hour after the start time, at this point completely oblivious to the mayhem that happened shortly before my arrival. Being a polite guest, I donned a white hazmat suit with no questions asked the got rushed to the upstairs of the club. I only had a split second to wonder my suit had a radioactive badge on, and why the man rushing me had a face mask hung around his neck.
Walking into the room I've abruptly left normality behind as I walked into a surreal alternate reality. Within a few minutes of sitting down, I was greeted by an excitable lady who introduced herself to me as Carolyn Cumhardy and asked ‘Oh you got through the nuclear fallout OK?’. Then I was told that the suspicious white substance on her face was just nuclear fallout cream, and was nothing to do with how she got her family name. Hmmm, I thought, this is pretty freaking surreal as I stared at the bowl of three eyed fish soup, and a glass of Rob Roy.
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RIP Binky, you were bloody tasty
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Scanning the room trying to find anything familiar, anything at all, anything that I can use to make sense of this madness. My eyes fell on a life size taxidermy polar bear, metal fencing, what looks like a stack of oscilloscopes, then I saw the framed picture of Mr Monty Burns from the Simpsons…..the penny dropped.
The night was to celebrate Charles Montgomery Burns, you know that lovely old man from t’ Simpsons.
Oh well, I thought, there’s no point trying to understand, just accept, relax and drink your Rob Roy.
If you want to make the Rob Roy at home here is the recipe:
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| It certainly hit the spot after being plunged into an alternate reality |
INGREDIENTS
50ml Monkey Shoulder
25ml Sweet Vermouth
3 Dashes Angostura bitters
METHOD
Add all ingredients to mixing glass, add ice
and stir. Once desired dilution is reached strain into chilled glass and
garnish with twist of orange peel.
GLASS
Stemmed cocktail glass
Next I tucked into my Three Eyed fish soup, followed by some Radioactive Haggis with orange coloured neeps and green tatties, and of course we had to have Lardy Lad Donuts for desert. It was a bit strange eating green mash; I kept on expecting that it would taste like peas.
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Mmmmmmm donuts…..
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After dinner we had another cocktail, a Mammie Taylor, very refreshing after the richness of the haggis. Then I finally got to meet in person Jake Mountain from Master of Malt, and I also got to meet Graeme Gardiner from The Edinburgh Whisky Blog. These two lovely chaps kept me company as I was at the event on my own.
Graeme in particular had me in stitches when he didn't realise he was sporting some major carpet burns after winning the hound racing.
I take full credit for sharing the pics on twitter. Sorry Graeme.
Mammie Taylor
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I love my Mammie
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INGREDIENTS
30ml Monkey Shoulder
10ml Fresh Lime juice
80ml Ginger ale
Lime wedges
METHOD
Add all ingredients to glass, add cold dry
ice and stir.
GLASS
Long
I won’t go into detail about party games some of us played, I recommend reading the blog post by the boys as there’s simply nothing more I can add to this part of the story that hasn't already been said. You can find their posts about the event here The Edinburgh Whisky Blog - Burns Night and here Master of Malt blog - Burns Night In retrospect I got away lightly by missing the caricaturist!
We finished the night with music from Third Degree Burns, a good old sing song and dance. We all left with sparklers in hand and grinning like kids as we made our way back to reality.
It was a fantastic and the most fun I've had at a whisky event! All I have to say is the next Burns supper I attend has a lot to live up to.
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Actually we were making a zombie apocalypse B movie
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For more information about Monkey Shoulder and to join the Monkey Shoulder Social Club at their next event, visit their website here Monkey Shoulder
Slàinte! Kat
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