Visit To Scotland

Hello All,

    It is that time of the month, when I start looking back, trying to track how the month went by, how many extra round of snacks I had, how much did I spend beyond the budget, how many times I cheated the exe

Black Dog Scotch

rcise journal, how many classes did I skip, how many weekends did I waste,  how much cash I need to have in hand to bail out my friends till the next salary and many more things. So, while reflecting back on the doings of the past month, I was kind of happy, I almost posted every single day on this blog, this month about my love of Scotch in general and Black Dog Reserve in particular. So, I wondered how a visit to Scotland, where the finest scotch of the world is made,  would be:

Kilt

If I ever get a chance to visit Scotland,  the list of events / things to which I look forward include

• Visiting some of the finest scotch making centres of the world.
• Meeting and talking with at-least half a dozen master blenders who make Scotch such a wonderful drink. It would be my pleasure just to shake hands with one of these blenders
• Try angler fishing, just like the great James MacKinlay who launched Black Dog Scotch and if possible catch / eat a salmon or other fishes which are local to Scotland
• Mix a spoon of water from Spey and Tay rivers with Black Dog Reserve and sip it slowly taking in the aroma and the richness
• Try some local chocolate and Scotch pairings.
• Play a bag-piper, try a kilt, and much more

  

  Black Dog

Well, how are your month ends? Do you plan to visit Scotland? If you won a lottery and the prize is an all paid trip to Scotland which you can design including modes of travel, places to visit then how will you design your trip? Do let me know.

Abhishek Boinapalli

Black Dog Improv Evenings

Hello All,

    How did your day go? Bringing it to a grand finish? Hope you all enjoyed yesterday’s post by Miss Manasa Edward about her intentions of enjoying memorable stays in five-star hotels and about her experience at the Taj Palace Hotel - New Delhi. Well, today I would like to share my first experience at visiting and enjoying a fine evening in a five-star hotel. Well, at the invitation of team Gignerclaps, I have been to hotel Taj Krishna in Hyderabad to unwind and relax as part of Black Dog Improv Evenings.

    Well, as mentioned earlier, the evening was a great success. The

Improv Evenings

weather was wonderful and suited the outdoor set-up. In a lush green lawn, I sipped my first round of Black Dog Reserve and finished it soon there-after on the rocks. The outdoor arrangements were fantastic, the grass was cool and green, the lighting was right, the music was entertaining, the guests were friendly and the staff were polite. I enjoyed casual conversation with a few guests and the bartender was friendly enough to mix a nice drink for me.

Black Dog

    The Scotch and the food went well together. The dishes made out of potatoes, the chicken and the fish, make my mouth water even today. Every single dish was made specially taking into note, the aroma and the taste of black dog to give you a great experience. The highlight of the day was comedy, theatre and loads of fun. The entire show was unrehearsed, uncut and unbelievably good. The actors would perform any act to entertain the audience. The team was challenged by the audience to enact a theme / concept and they always did a wonderful job.

Black Dog

    That day, they made me feel, “The brand promise of Black Dog is to help consumers relax and unwind - to pause and re-energize”. It was a great evening of which I still carry memories. Have you ever been to any event organized by the Black Dog? Enjoyed the Improv / the easy nights / ..? Do let me know.

Abhishek Boinapalli

Weekend of Movies and Scotch

Hello All,

    How is the weekend going on? Enjoying? Yesterday, was fantastic. My friends threw a party after loads of persuasion. We intended to unwind

Luxury Scotch

with the help of a little Scotch, letting its warmth consume us while we watch a movie or two. So, we choose Black Dog Reserve and after lot of fighting over the movies, we settled upon Transformers, the Dark of the Moon.  So here is how it went:

    Well, it took sometime for us to settle down for even now, we were arguing about the food to have, the chocolates to buy, the juice and many

Black Dog

other things. Once we settled down, Ravi started showing his magic by mixing drinks with rocks, juices, liqueurs and other stuff to the delight of everyone in the room. The drinks were awesome and the chocolates went well with the first round or so.

    When, Srikanth started getting involved in the movie too much, Ravi again played his magic using Scotch, Orange Juice, Herring and dunno what. This round was the highlight of the entire evening. It really went down smooth, bringing out the flavors out of Black Dog, freshness of orange juice and relaxing everyone to the core. It was this round, after which everyone stopped grudging about minor details, became more friendly and started enjoying the food, the drink and the movie.

Bumblebee

    After the movie, we went on to the main course and enjoyed sumptuous biryani and closed the evening with a ice cream. Ravi again, mixed ice cream and Scotch to end the evening on a high note for all of us. A really worth experience, thanks to Black Dog, to Ravi and to  and bumblebee and Optimus Prime from transformers.

    What is the best movie one should watch, sipping a round of scotch? Do you enjoy the  too? Who is your favourite character in it? Don’t forget to let me know.

Abhishek Boinapalli

A little fact, fictiona and mythology

Hi,

    Hope you started the weekend with a bang. I am trying to encourage my friends to throw a party to celebrate our good results without much success till now. Taking a leaf out of yesterday’s blog post, I decided to share my knowledge of various drinks which usually appeared in fiction works and in mythology. The topic actually started with the question, why does Abhishek Boinapalli drink Scotch only?  You can read the first part here. So here we go:

--x--

Miruvor

Appearing in The Lord of the Rings, miruvor is a warm and fragrant clear cordial of the Elves. It gives the drinker renewed strength and vitality. Miruvor is used by the Elves at their festivals. They do not reveal how miruvor was made, but it is thought to come from the honey of the undying flowers in the gardens of Yavanna.

Dwarves mead

Orc "vitality drink"

Appearing in The Lord of the Rings, this is an unnamed liquid given by Uglúk to the captive and weak Merry and Pippin. It gives them strength during their journey to Isengard. Described as having a burning sensation when drunk, it gives Merry a "hot fierce glow" inside. It also removes or dulls his bodily pain, enabling him to stand. Despite its invigorating nature, it is not very filling

Ent-draught

Appearing in The Lord of the Rings (The Two Towers), an Ent-Draught 

Home Made M

was an extremely invigorating drink of the Ents, brewed from the waters of the mountain springs on Methedras. These springs were the source of the river Entwash and the water had special properties. When Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took drank from the Entwash and bathed their feet they felt refreshed and their wounds were healed

Mead

The drink of choice for Dwarves, Saphira the dragon in the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. As per Norse Mythology, the mead was made like this:

After the Æsir-Vanir War, the gods sealed the truce they had just concluded by spitting in a vat. To keep a symbol of this truce, they created from their spittle a man named Kvasir. He was so wise that there were no questions he could not answer. He travelled around the world to give knowledge to mankind. One day, he visited the dwarves Fjalar and Galar. They killed him and poured his blood into two vats and a pot called Boðn, Són and Óðrerir. They mixed his blood with honey, thus creating a mead which made anybody who drank it a "poet or scholar"

--x--

Black Dog

Am I missing some important race or mythology or belief?  Kindly

do let me know of the same. Do you also love black dog just like me? Share your love along with me and I would be happy to share your story on the blog.

Abhishek Boinapalli

Benefits of Drinking Scotch

Hello All,

    How did the week start? Usually tuesday is the most moodiest of all days when your monday doesn’t start well. At my end, today ain’t so bad. We went shopping for rocking chair for the youngest friend I have and drank a wonderfully made “paya” (traditional breakfast, viz bone soup). Today, I have a note on benefits of enjoying your favorite scotch.

The key to enjoying the health benefits of scotch is to drink the right amount. Excess of anything is dangerous. When drunk in moderate quantities, there are many a benefits including:

• Moderate consumers of alcoholic beverages are generally less likely to suffer strokes, have

  

  Health Benefits

  better appetite,  diabetes, arthritis, enlarged prostate, dementia (including Alzheimer's disease), and several major cancers.
• Scotch has fewer calories than wine or beer, making it a good alcoholic drink to choose if you're watching your weight.
• Research evidence report a strong, consistent relationship between moderate alcohol consumption and reduction in cardiovascular disease in general and coronary artery disease in particular
• Alcohol consumption is related to total mortality in a U-shaped manner, where moderate consumers have a reduced total mortality compared with total non-consumers and heavy consumers
• A study in France found moderate drinkers to have a 75% lower risk for Alzheimer's Disease and an 80% lower risk for senile dementia
• A recent study found that alcohol consumption is associated with a significantly reduced risk of developing arthritic conditions including Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), Osteoarthritis (OA), reactive arthritis, psoriatic arthritis and spondylarthropathy
• Drinking alcohol was found to decrease the risk of     developing gallstone disease
• An analysis of data from 12 prospective studies that included     760,044 men and women who were tracked for seven to 20     years found that moderate drinkers are about 30% les
• A multi-center case-control study of subjects in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Ireland and the Czech Republic found results "consistent with previous studies, suggesting a protective effect of alcohol on HL

  

  Black Dog

• 
  
  The list continues with many others, such as essential tremors, hepatitis A, common cold, kidney stones, macular degeneration (a major cause of blindness), Pancreatic Cancer, Parkinson's disease, poor physical condition in the elderly,  stress and depression, and type B gastritis

    I myself enjoy, a sip of  the Black Dog Reserve every single day. What about you? What drink do you chose? Why? Any reason in particular? Suggested further reading here and here

Abhishek Boinapalli

Scotch in Hawaii

Hello all,

    Today, I have, a guest post from Miss Manasa Edward, the co-author of QuotesN. She is a regular reader of my blogs, a contributor to various print magazines, a traveller, a scotch lover and the mother of the cutest devil I know. Here we go:

--x--

Hi everyone,

    I just wanna share about my experience in Hawaii Islands. I, my son and my hubby visited them last year and still carry many many wonderful memories of the islands and the time we spent on the beach.

Beach Holiday

    First thing, first, the islands are beautiful, people are friendly and accommodating in nature and the trip ain’t a huge burden on your pocket. It was so cool, so exotic, so mesmerising. Truly as Mark Twain said, Hawaii Islands are the loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean. For most part of the trip, we stayed on the island of Oahu. Waikiki, down town Honolulu, Arizona memorial, U. S. S. Missouri are some cool places here.

    I started enjoying scotch 2 years ago. For the past 17 months, a single small peg of Black Dog Reserve has been giving me my daily boost of

Black Dog Scotch

relaxation, happiness and pleasure. So, naturally I carried my bottle along with me when I went to Hawaii (though I could have procured it there). Watching my husband and kid rolling on the beach, with a sip of Black Dog wetting my lips has been the highlight of the entire trip.  The trip brought all of us together, closer and made our bonds stronger.

    Should you decide to go to Hawaii, don’t forget to sip some scotch, on the beach. Ensure you don’t do something silly and break the law.

--x--

    What have you got to say? Ever went on a trip to tropical island / tropical beach? Enjoyed swimming in pristine waters? Ran for a mile or so in wet sand? Sat down sipping scotch in a barbecue party on the beach? Rode a horse along the beach? I intend to do them all someday.

    The author can be contacted using her mail id . Here is link to her blogger profile page.

Abhishek Boinapalli

Tasting Notes: Black Dog Reserve, Deluxe and Centenary Variants

Hello All,

Black Dog Scotch

A quick post today, sharing the tasting notes of variants of the finest scotch available in India, the Black Dog. We already shared the tasting notes of Black Dog Quintessence already on this blog. You can read it on this article. So, here we go with the tasting notes:

--x--

Black Dog Deluxe

Color : Amber, with golden highlights.

Aroma : Robust malty, mellow woody, complex yet delicate aroma of sherry and vanillic sweetness with whispers of soft peatiness in the background.

Palate : Beautifully rounded, heavy body, pronounced malty, mellow woody, fruity sweetness with teasing light warm peat.

Finish : Luxurious and exciting, long and warm with a touch of cream.

--x--

Black Dog Centenary

Color : Amber with golden highlights.

Black Dog Centenary

Aroma : Matured wood, toasted malt, mild honey sweetness, delicate butterscotch bordering on cream, with floral nuances that emerges at the end.

Palate : Robust body, pronounced rich malt and oak and sherry sweetness, spreads warmly in the mouth like silent sea waves.

Finish : Balanced, long, intense and bright.

--x--

Black Dog Reserve

Color: Deep, golden, glossy and mahogany.

Nose: A truly noble bouquet of luscious malty tones and rich velvety textures with a hint of oloroso sherry in the background.

Taste: Round and mellow complex quixotic flavours with an impeccable balance of individual malt and grain whiskies and silky soft tones that dance on the tongue.

Finish: Luxuriously smooth and long, a testament to the malt and grain whiskies which have spent years in oak casks and vats.

--x--

Have a spirit of food pairing that you love to review (or get reviewed) on our site? Do let us know. Also, don’t forget to share how you are enjoying the weekend. As promised, we shall update you about the party we had today, via a blog post tomorrow.

What is it that you love about the Black Dog Scotch? What flavor do you like? the Centenary / the Deluxe / the Reserve / the Quintessence? Do let us know.

Abhishek

Three things to do by the end of 2013.

Hello All,

    After receiving a generous hike at my office, I decided to have a blast this year. Three things I would like to do before the end of this year include:


1) A trip on Bullet via Goa, Karnataka, Kerala 

     The only bike I always wanted to own was the Bullet. Its thumping is music to my ears. So, I would like to take a holiday and go on a trip. My preference is to ride through the beaches of Goa, then head to Bangalore. After relaxing for a day or two, visit Coorg, travel through Masanagudi into national park and close the tour with a visit to Ooty.  My ride would be: A classic 500 cc bullet from the guys at Royal Enfield painted in military brown. Yeah, I meant the DESERT STORM. Any one interested in having a similar trip in the month of November may join me.
   

2) Sip Scotch, in a five star hotel

Black Dog Scotch

    After reaching Bangalore as a part of my trip, the one thing I will do for sure is Sip Scotch, listening to live music, relaxing, unwinding in a private suite of the costliest five star hotel of the entire city probably the Leela Palace or the Ista Hotel.  And what would I choose? A bottle of Black Dog (INDIA's best International Scotch) . I actually want to try out the 18 year old and the 21 year old variants named Reserve and Luintessence respectively. (Stay tuned for more information on Scotch. Meanwhile visit their facebook page).
   

3) Buy myself an Mahindra Thar

Mahindra Thar

    In December, the month in which I am born, I would buy a Mahindra Thar as a birthday gift from me to myself. I would want a Four Wheel Drive variant with some real nice power, performance and looks. You might call it a JEEP or GIPSY but I would call it a SUV. A thar, a bunch of friends and a mini-refrigerator stuffed with beer is all one need for the perfect weekend. Ain't it?? Am I missing something there?

   
    What are the things you would like to do, before the end of this year? And how is the weekend doing?

Abhishek Boinapalli