Whiskey & You, A'int Nothing I can Do!

Is the secret out of the bag before I begin?  This arrived in Ireland recently.. "It's been a long day"...sing baby, sing!

I have been so busy the last year getting the business up and running that it was becoming impossible to keep the blog updated on a regular basis so we are going to make the effort from now on to pen a few lines every once in a while.

Our Twitter feed over the last few months has been gaining quite a following from various sectors but mostly, although not all, from the whiskey industry related businesses. We are delighted to see individuals and companies involved in the whiskey industry take interest in us and we have been a little astounded with some of our followers.

Not only have we some of the largest names in the spirits business at home and abroad following us on Twitter but we have one of our very own music heroes following us.  If you know the above song then you know who we are talking about.  If you do not let me enlighten you!

Back in the day I was a big fan, and still am, of Hootie & The Blowfish. Remember them?  I have even been known to bang out a reasonable version of Let Her Cry on my guitar once in a while but only when my wife is not within ear shot!  This is where our music tastes part sides!

Anyway, there is nothing better than sitting back on a long summers evening with one of your favorite whiskeys and listening to a few Hootie songs with friends around to remind you of some of the words you've forgotten.  For those not familiar with Hootie & The Blowfish, the lead singer is non other than Darius Rucker now one of country music's top singer/songwriters and winner of the CMA Artist of the Year.  If I mentioned 'Wagon Wheel' you would say, 'Ah, yes' but that's another story.

So, lets just say that there is a little serendipity involved in the rest of this story and it has to do with a cake in the shape of a bottle of Knob Creek bourbon and a Darius Rucker concert in Vickers Street in Dublin. For my birthday a few years ago I was presented with a surprise party in our 300 year old local rural Irish pub. The surprise involved a birthday cake in the shape of a bottle of Knob Creek, one of my favorite bourbons. Before cutting the cake and sharing it around the pub I photographed it on my smartphone for prosperity.

                                      My local 300 year old, 6th generation Irish pub.

A year later Darius Rucker was coming to play in Dublin and my ever-thoughtful wife bought me tickets to attend.  Needless to say it was a great evening with Darius knocking out a selection of old Hootie numbers along with material from his latest album.  The Vickers Street venue is a nice relaxed venue and provides an intimate enough platform for concerts with plenty of room to sit and relax with a beer while enjoying the concert.  Those that are familiar with Darius on stage will know that he keeps a bottle of Jim Beam to one side sitting on a table so he can have a shot or two during the night while talking to the fans.

                     The first, the only, the last Knob Creek cake on the pub table.  It's 50 abv by the way!

                                                                Did I say I loved Knob Creek?

Before the evening ended I was standing near the stage area as by this time the die hard fans, your truly included, were, as we say in Ireland  'givin' it the welly'.  I was taking a photo of Darius on my phone when I remembered I still had the Knob Creek photo on my phone. I brought the image up on my screen and as Darius was entering a solo riff he began walking towards the front of the stage where I was. In an instant I held the phone facing him with one hand and with the other I made a gesture of having a drink.  At this stage he was leaning into his guitar for the long riff and was staring right at the phone. In the middle of the solo he looked straight at me and said in silence....'I don't drink that stuff'...!    He backed off smiling and I was in knots laughing!  Whether he knew that it was a Jim Beam brand of not I guess I will never know!

That, needless to say, made my night and I won't even go into the detail about how my younger brother who accompanied me on the night ended up in an after gig Hootie party in Miami on his honeymoon!

When my Twitter feed beeped one evening recently I was amazed and delighted to see the very man himself was following me on Twitter. After all these years as a Hootie fan it was a pure private moment of pleasure.