Three years ago, we were in Bilbao for the Challenge Cup final. What a difference a pandemic makes. Also, the sun was shining, at least in Spain.
Regarding the Little Cup, Flair99 says: “To find Montpellier there is quite stunning, they’re fighting to avoid relegation, and they’re certainly not pleasant to watch. How about Leicester?”
Same, Flair, same.
La Rochelle v Toulouse will undoubtedly be a more interesting match. I’m calling it for La Rochelle, because I would like them to win.
Onna telly this week
Friday 21st May
| Leicester v Montpellier | 20:00 | BT Sport 1 |
Saturday 22nd May
| Sharks v Stormers | 12:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Lions v Bulls | 14:30 | Premier Sports 2 |
| La Rochelle v Toulouse | 16:45 | BT Sport 2 |
Sunday 23rd May
| Nada |
Ovally Balls 
Small cans = bigger mark up maybe?
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American-style I thought.
The worst are those 250 ml bottles you get in France.
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“Pour it into a glass.”
Well that’s also going to be disappointing.
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Deebee, regarding Irish Whiskey, if you see a bottle of JJ Corry: The Gael, it’s worth a punt.
We had it at a tasting and I really liked it.
The advantage Scotland has over all the other whisky producing countries is the sheer number of distilleries and breadth of flavours available.
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I quite like the cans which allow you to take the whole top off.
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@deebee – number of distilleries in Ireland has exploded in last few years. For years, there were 3 (or 4?) – Jameson in Midleton near Cork, Bushmills up in Antrim, Cooley near Dundalk and another I can’t recall.
However, these three supplied raw spirit to loads of bonders etc – who would put it in casks and age it – and then market it as “Connemara Gold” (actually I think that is a fairly respectable brand) – despite the initial distillation taking place well away from the “Wesht”
I’ve drifted well away from whisk(e)y these days – I used to buy a duty free bottle every time I travelled and ended up with a press full of unopened bottles.
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We’re remedying the issue with numbers fairly quickly – got a new one being built just out of town here. Plus Dingle is only about 6-7 years old.
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Tullamore, no?
I don’t drink whisk(e)y but the history of it in Ireland is interesting. Have been reading Mary Daly’s classic social and economic history of late 19th Century Dublin and the figures for production of whiskey in the country are amazing – 14 million gallons in 1900. There were big disputes over pot whiskey and patent whiskey. There was a big push to get the English drinking classes on to whiskey in the 19th Century.
Am off to The Coombe later to visit a bookshop. The shop’s called Marrowbone Books – a corruption St Mary le Bone, like Marleybone – and there was one of the large distillers belonging to a Jameson on Marrowbone Road
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JJ Corry: The Gael
I’ll have a look out for that. Mrs Deebee is more of an Irish whiskey drinker, I’m more of a Scotch person.
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Trisk, my business partner does a lot of work here for various Irish distilleries and it’s amazing how the industry in Ireland (to the casual outside observer) has mushroomed in size and sophistication in recent years. Still waiting for samples, mind.
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Trans-Tasman news, both Aussie sides were in touch at half time and both got blown away in the second half. The Reds by the Canes and the Brumbies by the Highlanders. Pretty sad, really.
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Deebs, you should get an invite to the duty free shop in Pretoria. Loads and loads and loads of whisk(e)ys, and not bad prices.
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Trisk, iirc there are around 30 distilleries in Ireland now, with more being built. There are 130 in Scotland, with more being built and previously defunct ones being re-opened.
I don’t know where this is going to go, there must be a saturation point somewhere, but not yet, seemingly.
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Exeter side to face Sale:
15 Stuart Hogg, 14 Alex Cuthbert, 13 Henry Slade, 12 Ollie Devoto, 11 Tom O’Flaherty
10 Joe Simmonds (capt), 9 Jack Maunder
1 Alec Hepburn, 2 Luke Cowan-Dickie, 3 Harry Williams
4 Sam Skinner, 5 Jonny Hill
6 Dave Ewers, 7 Jannes Kirsten, 8 Sam Simmonds
16 Jack Yeandle, 17 Ben Moon, 18 Marcus Street,19 Sean Lonsdale, 20 Richard Capstick, 21 Stu Townsend, 22 Harvey Skinner, 23 Ian Whitten
Baxter not holding back (I don’t know what’s up with Jonny Gray).
I wonder what Sale will do? I think Baxter believes the players will profit from as much playing time together as possible – and, of course, both teams want a home semi-final!
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@Tichct
No doubt all depends on the wondrous trade deals being lined up by Johnson’s lot.
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Facile answer says 1.6bn Chinese and equal number in India who get more prosperous – if only ever so gradually in many places – year by year and who want to show it by buying “sophisticated” western goods – not their grandpa’s firewater…
But yeah – who’s going to be drinking all this stuff? I do think there’s an element in established markets of product replacement – buy a 10 yo malt instead of a blend.
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Tullamore, no?
@TomP – only re-opened in 2010s after 60 years – albeit band new facility
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Coming back to the craft/real ale discussion – I think there’s a big difference between USA/Ireland and UK (well, maybe England) – USA seemed to dominated by massive macro-brewers, and to an extent Ireland was similar (anything you like as long as it’s Guinness). UK still retained small / medium sized breweries, so there were local beers of different styles.
In Ireland, we jumped from nothing but Guinness to adding multiple multi-national lagers – you can still go into bars in Ireland today (ah, well not ‘today’ specifically due to lockdown) and see Heineken, Miller, Carlsberg, Coors, Budweiser, Rockshore alongside Guinness. (Cork always had Beamish as a local “brew”), but the micros are beginning to get in. I’m sure there’s a good few in it because they see a market slot not because they love brewing – but it all adds to choice…..
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TomP – SA has just bust a major scam being run by diplomats in Pretoria who were abusing the duty free shops and reselling the booze into the local market. Apparently the net is widening and a cursory glance suggests that we have an extradition treaty with the Czech Republic, but not Ireland.
More seriously, when I was doing work for the SA wine industry in the rest of Africa, the duty free stores were a major target for the more expensive brands. A global brand of duty free shops that I dealt with did a roaring trade with their shops located in the diplomatic areas of cities in Africa. You’ll also find very upmarket booze shops in most capitals in the areas where the diplomats (and hence lots of expats outside of that) live and work.
I remember taking a Brazilian client of mine to a small remote city in northern Mozambique years ago and she asked where a good place was to have lunch. Wanted to try out the local prawns and chicken. We drove around the beachfront area for a while and found what we were looking for – a fairly ramshackle place on the beach, a small distance from the local hangouts. Client was sceptical until I pointed to all the United Nations vehicles outside it: the UN boys and girls are very keen to save the world, but in my experience they enjoy doing it in great comfort. I wasn’t wrong!
#Lifelessonsoverlunch
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“buy a 10 yo malt instead of a blend.”
You’ll do well to find out the age of most of the malt in the supermarkets these days.
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Trisk – that is true in that the US is dominated by the massive breweries but it essentially drove the craft beer movement in the 90s. There are some many small and not so small breweries out there it’s a wonderful place to enjoy beer.
Portland is a mecca apparently.
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Similar thing happened in the Netherlands. 3 massive companies dominated the market but all these little microbreweries popped up. There are over 300 now. We were in a town called Zaltbommel 2 or 3 years back and went to this place: https://www.zaltbommelse-stadsbrouwerij.nl/bierkaart.html A lot of Belgian stuff on there as well, of course.
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New post in the offing.
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New post here.
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