In Which We Combine Happy and After Dinner Whiskey Hours

I got back from a day trip up to Tucumcari... slightly under 200 miles, round-trip... earlier this evening and immediately adjourned to the verandah to savor a few fingers of that loverly JW Gold and burn a small cigar.  I took a page out of the reviewer's comments I linked (above) and put three fingers of the Gold in the freezer yesterday afternoon, the object bein' to freeze the spirit as suggested by the Johnnie Walker folks on their web site.  Well, sorta.  Mr. Walker's heirs and descendents... or the Diageo folks, acting on their behalf... recommend freezing the entire bottle for 24 hours before drinking.  I'm not willing to go THAT far but I'm all for tryin' new stuff, so we froze a small amount of the Gold before imbibing.  Here's what it looked like after coming out of the freezer:

The results?  Not too shabby!  Freezing seems to enhance the pepper/spice flavors in the drink while not taking a thing away from that wonderful nose.  Freezing also reduces the spirit to a syrupy sorta texture and increases the intensity of the flavors on the palate.  I really liked the latter effect and I might have to do this again in the near future.  The drink stayed pretty danged cold for a rather longish time, all the more surprising considerin' it was 90 degrees out when I took to the verandah.

About that day trip... the object of said trip was to mosey on up to Tucumcari and have a late lunch with DIL Alisa; grand-daughters Anastasia (and husband Alex), Amanda, Ava, and Angelina; and great-grand-offspring Taurean and Aria.  The trip was a great success: we got to spend some quality time (however brief) with all involved and I got to sharpen up my grand-parenting skills, which aren't as rusty as I might think... mainly because I succeeded in making the grandbabies laugh a lot, and that's no mean feat.  DIL Alisa and grand-daughter Amanda took photos of the event and I have it on good authority those should appear in my e-mail box sometime in the near future.  We shall post a couple o' same upon receipt.

So: a fun day.  I only wish I lived closer to the kids... ALL the kids... so this sorta thang could happen more often.  (sigh)