I find whisky to be slightly hard work, perhaps largely because I like cask-strength stuff and that hurts. Visiting the neighbours I quickly moved from a bottle of Zind-Humbrecht Pinot Gris to this, which is only marginally more alcoholic. The trick to tasting whiksy is to take the tiniest taste and let the flavours explode on the tip of your tongue.

Talisker 10 year old
A very peaty nose, smells like fresh Highland water. It is really quite complex with lots of different aromas there. The palate is rich and flavoursome, peaty with caramel and smoke characters. This is a powerful, complex and interesting whisky, I really quite like it.

Purchased direct from the Meantime Brewery pub, the Union. A white-beer style.

Meantime Brewery White, 5%
Cloudy amber colour. Very fruity nose, banana and spiced peach. It has a refreshing sparkle. The palate is also fruity. This is fruity, refreshing and fun. Very nice.

This was the refreshment on offer at an incredibly dull Korean restaurant I visited tonight. A Korean lager that claimed to be made with 'fresh, natural water'. Better than that stale, artificial water, I'll wager....

Hite, 4.5%
Very pale yellow. Doesn't smell of anything. It tastes very slightly sweet and there is a hint of maltiness, but this is basically fizzy water. I think the name has an 's' missing from the start of it.

*also known as 'fucking close to water'.

A beer from a different local microbrewery, Zero Degrees of Blackheath. They sell five litre kegs of beer to carry out. This is slipping down a treat with the rugby today.

Zero Degrees Pale Ale, 4.6%
Dark amber colour. The nose is very hoppy and floral. The palate is pleasingly bitter, with floral hoppiness strongly present. The after-taste persists a long time with the hoppy bitterness. It is a very refreshing, quite complex drink, which is balanced in its degree of alcohol. Really rather nice.

I am getting to the end of the beers I purchased on my visit to Sainsbury's. It is really good that they sell Meantime brewery beers, they are excellent quality and reasonably priced. I'll get some direct when I next pop into their boozer, the Union. This is apparently brewed using an authentic Oktoberfest recipe and is not pasteurised. Nice that it is available in months other than October.

Sainsbury's 'Taste the difference' Munich style Oktoberfest bier, 5.4%
Amber colour. A malty nose that smells almost sweet with its richness. The palate is quite round and weighty, with the alcohol giving it a sweetness. It is not all that bitter, but is quite refreshing nonetheless. The fresh, malty after-taste persists for a long time. This is what lager should be like, strong and characterful.

Again this is made by the Meantime Brewery and is bottled without pasteurisation. It is made with Vienna malt and Bavarian hops.

Sainsbury's 'Taste the difference' Vienna style amber lager, 5%
Dark amber colour. A malty, hoppy nose. The palate is rich with a good hoppy bitterness to it. Even though this has quite a lot of malty richness the bitterness keeps it lively and stops it from becoming soupy. The taste persists with nice floral and malty flavours. A good beer.

England just whipped Wales in the Six Nations; a celebration is called for! This Californian ale was brewed 'to celebrate the winter season' and is made in the tradition of 'old world' ales brewed for that purpose.

Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale, 6.8%
Dark amber colour. This smells very floral, hoppy and quite alcoholic. The taste is very bitter. Good. It has malty richness and floral, apricot-y hoppiness on the palate. The finish is long and refreshingly bitter. Whilst this is rich and alcoholic, it seems a bit less soupy than the 1845 I had yesterday; it is very well balanced. This is really rather good. An excellent beer to celebrate an excellent result in the rugby (oh and the winter season too).

This was another purchase from my trip to a large branch of Sainbury's.

The first matches of the Six Nations rugby championship are today. I need to start off with something light and refreshing. This comes from the Meantime brewery (via a large branch of Sainsbury's). This is one of my local microbreweries and it makes excellent beers, generally lager styles. This states it was made with Kentish hops, malted Lincolnshire barley and was bottled without pasteurisation.

Sainsbury's 'Taste the difference' late hopped blonde ale, 4.5%
Pale yellow/amber colour. It smells very malty and flowery, quite hoppy. The nose is aromatic. It tastes light and refreshing, with a really good bitter hope finish. There is almost something parma violet-y about the flowery, fruity, hoppiness on the finish. It is a balanced, lively drink and fulfils my requirement for a light drink to start the afternoon's entertainment. A very good beer.

This is a real ale in a bottle, a bottle-conditioned beer, from a good London brewery who make some excellent stuff and run some good pubs. These real ales should be served only slightly chilled, not at fridge temperature; making them too cold dulls the flavour.

Fuller's 1845, 6.3%
Dark amber colour. This is rich and malty, with obvious high alcohol. The taste is very persistent and the alcohol makes the finish taste very round and rich. It is quite weighty, but is obviously lively and refreshing. Not the kind of thing you'd sit down and drink bottle after bottle of, it is too powerful and alcoholic, but as a pick-me-up on a cold winter's day it works just fine. I think this is a lot better balanced than their other bottle-conditioned beer, Vintage Ale, which is just too sweet, heavy and ponderous. A very good beer, and a personal favourite.

This is stocked by Waitrose (and Ocado, their online persona) and larger branches of Sainsbury's have it too.

The neighbours have a very good espresso machine, a Francis Francis X1. It came from here. The reason why I know it is good is because it always produces a very good crema on the espresso. The orange/brown foam on top is very present and persistent. The coffee it produces is rich and full of flavour. It is also easy to clean and maintain, it takes coffee pods as well as ground coffee and can make one or two shots at the same time; the perfect coffee machine for what is known as the pro-sumer market. Current beans in the grinder are a light-roast espresso bean; my personal preference is for something a bit darker and stronger but this is good, it has a reasonable degree of balance in its flavours and it is not over-whelming. I feel deeply invigorated after a cup. It is also handy for making one of the raw materials for espresso martinis.

You'll note I do not only drink alcohol.

Whilst in New York last year we had plenty of good cocktails. One of these provoked us to buy a cocktail shaker and try to perfect a recipe for it: the margarita. It is very important to use decent tequila, Sauza Commemorativo is perfect; the first time I tried (quite a lot of) this I was sure it was vaguely hallucinogenic. Perhaps it was simply that I had quite a lot to drink.

To make the perfect margarita you will need:

One shot Sauza Commemorativo tequila
One shot Cointreau (both of these straight from the freezer)
The juice of one and one half of the ripest, juiciest limes
The juice of one half of a ripe, large lemon
Plenty of ice
Perhaps one half of a teaspoon of sugar (depending whether or not you need super-grade raw acidity to wake a slumber-dizzied mind)

Shake all of the ingredients in a cocktail shaker with as much vigour as your as-yet-unperked-up muscles can manage then strain off the ice into a martini glass. Drink. Then mix yourself another, drink it and wonder if the loudness of the walls breathing will distract from you finally getting around to serving your guests.

You will note that I do not have a salty rim on the glass, nor is this one of those dreadful icy-slush concoctions. This is a characterful, powerful and invigorating drink for the strong of mind and noble of character.

If you are in the UK a good source of Commemorativo is the Drinks Shop.

I cannot afford to drink Grand Cru Burgundy every day, so I need something refreshing (and alcoholic) to keep me perked up; gin and tonic is a perfect drink for this. You have to use decent gin, of course, the dilute Gordon's just will not do. Tanqueray and Plymouth are my standard gins, and both of them have a heroic version (Tanqueray Export and Plymouth Navy Strength) for when a bit more happiness is required. I have tried other gins that are available, but these are my usual purchases.

I like my gin and tonics to be quite strong and quite large. The best place to obtain one of these is the spiritual home of the gin and tonic, the Basque country. On ordering a G&T there a pint glass with some ice in it will be put on the bar and gin will be poured into it. They keep on pouring until you say stop. It is then topped up with tonic water. On my one trip to the Basque country this resulted in many happy lunches and a reasonable number of relaxing afternoon kips. Better than drinking Rioja, certainly.

Perhaps the most memorable gin and tonic I had was in that region at a restaurant called Akelaŕe; it was a gin and tonic on a plate. The gin was a sorbet and the tonic was a fizzy jelly. It was really rather nice and really quite strong. We sat at the table with the best view over the sea. After the G&T on a plate I didn't mind that the view consisted of fog and driving rain with nothing beyond twenty metres visible.

An important note: G&Ts should be served with lemon. The use of limes is a foul abomination.