Hopping about Europe

So, I haven’t really written about anything as of late, but in all honesty, not much was story worthy. So, I thought that I would write about my three mini journeys around Europe in the last little while. Recently, I have had the pleasure of going to Pit Lochry in Scotland, Aix-Les-Bains in the French Alps and Rotterdam in Holland. While none of them were too terribly exciting, I thought it would be a good short story.

First, back in December I was given the opportunity to head up to Pit Lochry and visit two whisky distilleries. The first was Edradour, the world’s smallest whisky distillery. It only has 3 people who make the whisky and it is all done by hand and shovels. One of the more interesting parts was to get there, you really did feel like it was a tiny distillery because you had to navigate down long, one lane (and that’s generous) paths to get to this little distillery nestled in the hills. While there we ended up waiting it their lounge and the group I was with became quite enamored with the fact that every time you purchased a tea or coffee you got a free full sized mug. This meant that we had people going back and buying coffee after coffee for a collection of mugs.  Later we went to Blair Athos which is one of the biggest single malt distilleries in the world; oddly enough, one that you most likely have never heard of. That’s because it’s actually not sold as Blair Athos. It’s used as the major component in Bell’s whisky, the number one whisky in the UK. I will attest, after testing the unblended version I can easily see why they blend it into something else. Whew. There we saw the same set up as the first, but in a much larger and more mechanized way. In the end it was a good trip and interesting to see, but, I can easily say that once you see one whisky distillery, you have seen them all and the only thing different is the type in your glass at the end.

Next, in February I ended up on a work trip off to southeastern France to visit one of our raw material producers. So, to start I had to catch a flight from London City Airport to Geneva and drive down to Aix-Les-Bain (Near Albertville, where the 92 winter Olympics were). Before I go into the actual trip, might I say, flying from City is amazing when you live where I do.  I made it from my front door to my gate in 35 minutes. How is that for great? Add in the fact that my flight was as long as my daily train and I could really get used to this. We visited the plant and it was ridiculous. Here we are surrounded by pristine ski mountains and down in the valley, there is a silicon metal smelter with 5 furnaces. I mean it was a little out of place. I would have to imagine it is much like how Henderson and Climax are in Colorado.  The trip was great though, I have to say that I think that I could easily spend a lot of time in that area. One thing I did learn was that, it doesn’t matter where in the world you are, you can always find an Irish bar and if you are in a small town in France, an Irish bar with Crown Royal (which is extremely rare in Europe).  I would easily say that the highlight would have to be me chatting with one of the guys I went on the trip with about the drinks that I will regularly drink. So here I go, with beer, gin and tonic, whisky, whisky/coke and not really thinking I say, and occasionally if I’m at a good place I’ll have a martini. To which, I get the following events:

The Martini of Doom

The guy asks “Martini? What’s that?”

I reply “The James Bond drink, gin, Vermouth and in my case a twist of lime.”

He then tells me that he hasn’t ever had a martini and that I should go get one. Obviously, me having drunk most of the night by this point I have forgotten I’m in a dingy Irish bar and accept the offer and go get one. Let’s start with, the bartender only spoke French and my French after drinking gets really bad, so that was already a clusterfuck. Then when I did explain it, he had never heard of the drink before, apparently he was an artist moonlighting as a bartender.  Thankfully, (or not really, depending on how you look at it) we were the only ones in the bar so the bartender gives up saying, hop back here, make your drink yourself. So here I go, and I quickly start to realize how bad of a decision this was. First there is no cocktail shaker so I am mixing in a beer mug. Then I have to use essentially a butter knife on a lemon (I still can’t believe they actually had the ingredients. I mean they didn’t have baileys and it was an Irish bar). Finally, I had to stain it with my butter knife into a different glass. Surprisingly it wasn’t terrible, and I drank it letting the guy who had never had a Martini taste it only to mention that he doesn’t like gin… I really wish I was smarter then I get when drinking. Why is everything a good idea?



The Small Town in Holland I visited



Finally, in late February I was able to travel to Rotterdam in Holland to visit the molybdenum roaster. That trip was my very first time to visit Holland (My mother’s native country) and I will say, that while I did love seeing the small amount that I did, I am going to hold off making any opinions about it as I know that I will be going back someday. Hopefully soon.  The people I met were really nice, and I had to laugh, because while visiting the plant I got the chance to talk to one of the Americans that was working there and he offered to me his impression of the Dutch people as nice people, but extremely logical and rigid in their lack of desire to “just see what happens” in any situation. Apparently, I don’t have roots to my heritage in that manner then. Winging it has always been the best way forward. But alas, as I said, the biggest thing I took from that trip is that I really want to go back (also, preferably when the temperature is above freezing without a killer wind). Oh well, at least it’s an adventure for the future.