Main loot this year was an iFixit Pro Toolkit, great for small gadget work.
Nothing musical, as my former career as a rock bassist has been entirely scuppered by serious degenerative disc disease, ie can now barely walk...
Birthday gift: 128GB Samsung Fit flash drive, fast enough to use as storage on an Asus TP200SA, which has a miniscule 32GB C drive.
And we bought wine. Lots of wine. Just because.
My next door neighbour works for a distillery with awfy attractive banks, and was telling me a hilarious story just before Christmas about how one of the guys from his work had had to deliver an £18k 8-O bottle to him to auction off for something or other, and nearly dropped it on the driveway due to the icy conditions.
The next day he asked a favour of me, which I gladly undertook, and he said there'd be a bottle of whisky in it for me. (bounce)
He brought it round on xmas eve. It was Jack Daniels. :L
You pointed out I assume that Jack Daniels is better suited to cleaning toilets than being consumed?
Anyway, the other bottles I got were a bottle of Jura Loch - apparently a travel exclusive, but a lot of these are being sold normally at the moment due to lack of travel. I also got a bottle of Eagle Rare bourbon - I do like a nice bourbon from time to time, so long as it isn't the cheap shit like JD. Meanwhile for my wife, she got a bottle of Benromach which is quite nice, plus I bought her another nice bourbon - a bottle of Blanton's which is actually very nice!
Either way though, our whisky shelf is suitably re-stocked now :)
Perhaps, as Jack Daniels has the same parent company as Glendronach, he assumed it would be nice.
I know somebody who loves the stuff. She guzzles huge quantities. I forget how awful it is and try a glass every few years. Although it isn't as tooth-achingly sickly as that appalling whisky-liqueur Southern Comfort, it does leave you feeling as though a whole chocolate orange has been forced into your mouth and the residue polished off with a solution of Vics Vapour Rub and meths.
I assumed he just got some sort of deal on it through work tbh!
I quite like Jack tbf. Takes me back to my yoof in metal clubs. Also I'm not really that into whisky - can appreciate and enjoy a nice one but never really caught the bug for hunting down the perfect single malt.
Ahh, the Marlboros first to block off your taste buds you mean?
Don't get me wrong, it's OK as a mixer with Cola and whatnot, but it tastes awful when neat IMO.
It's a bit like cheap tequila in that respect. That Sierra stuff you always get in pubs goes with salt and lime for a reason - because it tastes like crap. However I've had several more expensive tequilas which taste really nice just with a bit of ice and nothing else.
It's all a matter of taste, though. I think JD tastes bad; other people love it. That's fine. I'm not a fan of most cheap blended Scotch whiskys either, but on the other hand, I do like dirt-cheap London dry gin. I'll drink that neat or with mixers. I'm not denying that there are better gins but I feel lucky that I'm happy with what I get at £10 per bottle instead of £40.
I think it depends on the bottle. I'm not a fan of many cheap blended whiskys like Johnny Walker, but I find Famous Grouse to be fine for a cheaper blend, and some of the slightly more expensive blends like the Naked Grouse are genuinely very good! Chivas Regal is also perfectly OK to my palette.
Can mostly say the same for cheap anything, though. Depends what your use is.
Sierra is fine if you're going to mix it with grenadine and orange juice for a Sunrise as the tequila is a background player. But an El Diablo is very tequila forward (if made fairly short with limited ginger ale) and benefits from a good quality tequila.
And for a slammer I definitely want a good tequila as that's what I'm mainly going to be tasting. In fact, we finished off our Xmas bottle of patron gold as slammers last week.
I don't drink many straight spirits, most of them really don't taste good like that to me. There are some whiskies and bourbons I enjoy straight, and occasionally a dark and/or spiced rum, but mostly my spirits go into cocktails. Going to experiment with some sours recipes using the Jack, might tame the sweetness a bit.
I've sampled a few single malts and found them generally pleasant but unmemorable. I think I prefer blended, but maybe I'm just a cheap drunk. My fave going on for a few years now is Islay Mist, allegedly 8-yo and blended with Laphroig.