Tuesday 22 January 2008

Idle Minds Want to Know ...

1. Was Robbie Burns a Mason? I've been saying he was, ever since, as a sixteen year old, I piped the haggis into the Cremorne Masonic Lodge one Burns Night. But it occurs to me now that the Cremorne Masons may have been celebrating Burns Night for the decadent joy of wearing woollen kilts in high Summer, not because Burns ever fondled a chisel.

2. Can I make something out of locally available ingredients that tastes like Drambuie and costs less than $50 a pint? If so, how? (This is a pressing matter. It's only three sleeps til Burns Night, and my wee sleekit hostie has asked me to bring whisky, but I don't like whisky because I have a completely unsophisticated palate [i.e., cabernet sauvignon, no; ribena, yes], and Drambuie is sweet, but I'd have to sell my false teeth to finance it.)

3. Is there any correlation between testosterone levels and natural hair colour? The emissary from Sydney told me on Saturday that people with naturally occurring light coloured hair have less testosterone than people with naturally occurring dark coloured hair. I am not persuaded, but I was nonetheless disappointed by the "naturally occurring" proviso: an indigo rinse before breakfast and a dollop of peroxide after lunch coulda been fun.

4. Balsamic vinegar on strawberries: yes or no?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

1.Given how much fun the idea is, why give it up now?

2.Never having attended a Burns’ night, I do not know how strict the alcohol requirements are or how discerning the average attendee might be. I am also no moonshiner, but I imagine you can get away with whatever you please, so long as the offerings of other guests are served first.

3.Could explain the playfully violent streak I exhibit towards my loved ones, so, as a dark-haired lass, I tell you unequivocally that it’s absolutely true.

4. My first thought is that that would be very wrong, but I stand ready to be corrected.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Ta, Eyrie. This is all very helpful.

Re the Drambuie, I don't actually have anything resembling a still: what I was wondering was whether it might be possible to mix run o' the mill scotch with a bucket of honey and esther of heather (or some such) and convince the young folk that it's a gude willie waught. (Is there such a thing as run o' the mill scotch, for that matter? I'm out of my depth here.)

Anonymous said...

'fraid I probably can't offer further assistance. All I know about scotch is what I've been able to glean as I saunter languidly past on my way to the red and fortified wines, but I do know that the prices vary a great deal and the mill runs at various levels. What you're proposing sounds like a kind of cocktail anyway, so maybe you could just look for cocktail recipes which contain whisky and are sweet, make up a gallon or so and bring that with you to the Burns' night festivities. The cocktail book I have has several recipes involving whisky, fruit and various forms of sugar. There's also a Whisky/Drambuie combination ominiously entitled "Rusty Nail".

Martin Kingsley said...

Aye, I'm going to agree with the cocktail route, here, and wholeheartedly.

I've been drinking my old man's distilled-in-1968 Macallan when the mood has taken me/us, and I have to say that is a fine, fine, fine drop of single highland malt (oh my good God, yes, yes, a thousand times, yes and please). I think, however, that it retails for around a hundred dollars a bottle, but if you ever find yourself needing to gift something to a discerning Scotch drinker whom what matters to you enough to drop a hundred smackeroos on 'em, I guarantee you cannot go wrong with the Macallan. So I've done you a valuable service there, and no mistake.

Run of the mill, as far as I'm aware, essentially refers to things used to remove paint from concrete driveways which have been mislabeled as drinkables. You may die a horrible death attempting to consume the aforementioned. Not to be alarmist or anythin'. Just sayin'.

Cocktails it is, then. Be a test of ye olde Google, I reckons, I does.

Martin Kingsley said...

That is, the drinkables have been mislabeled, not the driveways, though I imagine you would die from attempting to ingest a driveway, no matter how you tell yourself just a tiny piece couldn't hurt.

Shelley said...

Oh, now I greatly desire a wee sip of Drambuie. How I miss my parents' liquor cabinets.

#3 sounds like total rubbish. I would ask a chemical pathologist but I fear being laughed at. A lot.

Maria said...

Asians and Negroes; we're full of testosterone. Them Swedes and Norwegians just don't generally have nearly as much.

Or so it seems to say.

If it's "naturally occurring", Does it mean if you start greying or balding, you're losing your testosterone?

trixie said...

1. All Scots are Masons.

2. ALl Scots worship at the altar of single malt. With due apologies for the imperative tone, do NOT be dabbling with the whiskey, my love. Incidentally, my preferred sweet Scots tipple is the honey sweet and herbal Glayva which is, i think a big kinder the to scots purse than Drambuie.

3. Is my hair darker than yours?

4. Yes yes yes. Or with Pernod, pepper and icing sugar (the strawbs, that is, not the vinegar.)

xx

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Gosh, I hadn't realised there were such strong opinions about whiskery on this here intertube. I'm going down the liquortorium tonight to see what I can see. All this would have been so much easier if I'd just been asked to bring a posy of thistles, or a panful of deep fried mars bar, or any other classic emblem of scotoutlandery.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Maria, to her credit, my friend didn't try to establish any causal connection between hair darkness and testosterone levels. She just suggested that the genes that determine hair darkness and testosterone tend to be inherited together in some sort of package deal. She wasn't able to supply any evidence that I found convincing, whereas I felt that my blond incipient moustache was irrefutable proof to the contrary.