FA Cup, Scotch and Old Friends

It's FA Cup night (OK, day in the UK, but as with most years, I'm on the other side of the planet - therefore, night). Many years ago, a Scottish friend would always run a scotch tasting night to coincide with the cup game. The best incarnation of this came one year sometime in the 90's, and involved tasting successively rarer, more mature, and much more expensive scotches, all the way up to the penultimate dram. Then, when we were all three sheets to the wind, and ready to watch the big game, Mark (my Scottish mate) "opened" an ancient bottle of something ... decanted it, and gave it to one and all to taste, declaring it the rarest tipple in the land.

We all proclaimed it the greatest scotch we'd ever tasted, and retired to watch the game. It only took a few minutes for Mark to burst out laughing, and dance around the lounge room with a bottle of 100 Pipers scotch, one of the most dire distillations ever created. Mark then took great pleasure explaining how he'd decanted this into the "ancient" bottle, and ribbed us all at our terrible ability to discern decent scotch. Most of us protested that after a dozen other rounds, we were in no shape to deal with his sleight of hand.

I honestly don't remember who won the game that night ... but the memory of being duped with the 100 Pipers remains. Tonight I've opened the bottle of Balvenie myself, to ensure no one has substituted it. It won't take long for me to forget who wins tonight's game, but the memories of the scotch will remain :-).