Happy New Year! As usual on New Year’s Day I’m listening to the New Year’s Day concert from Vienna while sipping an Islay single malt whisky (a Bruichladdich Port Charlotte valinch to be precise). Again as usual the waltzes and polkas, this year conducted by Riccardo Muti, are excellent, as is the whisky. What’s unusual this year is the chocolate I’m enjoying with it:
This year I’m having some Whisky Nibs from Chocolate Tree in Edinburgh. I can’t remember where exactly I came across them, I think it was some food or whisky blog. As the whisky they use is from Islay I of course had to order some.
Islay Whisky Chocolate Nibs. And some Islay whisky.The chocolate is very nice, a dark chocolate with 69% cocoa content from the Marañón canyon in Peru. The nibs make it nice and crunchy. With the whisky content in the single digit percentage the whisky taste for me was quite faint but detectable. I’m sure connoisseurs with better developed and trained taste buds will detect much more. I think well worth giving it a try (once available again, when I was writing this it was out of stock. I’m hoping they’re going to produce more).
And with that I’m returning to the New Year’s Day concert from Vienna, where as I’m typing this they’re playing An der schönen blauen Donau.
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Andrew Meir
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Klaus Reinstein
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Armin Auth
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Good chocolate with minute hint of malt. Gr8 pairing though with dram. On its own, nibs need longer soaking in whisky & cask strength !
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Texa MacIndeor
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CbrowneChris
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Enrico Anders
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❤️
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Jane Ashall
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Celia Lewis
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Éric Mac Lewis
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New on the blog: Vienna New Year’s Day concert and Islay Whisky Nibs (from @ChocTree) new.islayblog.com/2018/01/01/vie…
Grateful for the review, thanks & enjoy Vienna ❤️🍫
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Chocolate Tree
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Left Field Kombucha
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Gertrud Elise Hahn
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Vienna New Year’s Day concert and Islay Whisky Nibs new.islayblog.com/2018/01/01/vie… via @islayblog @Scenic_Routes this could almost have been written by you! Looking forward to our Anniversary trip to Islay in February #isleofjuradistillery also awaits! #WhiskyWednesday
Fantastic chocolate, if you are in Edinburgh Armin should visit their shop and cafe!
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Isle Adilla Cabin
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Happy New Year! Regular readers might remember that I kind of have a New Year’s tradition, listening to the New Year’s Day Concert from Vienna with a wee dram of Islay single malt whisky. Last years I had some whisky chocolate nibs, this year I decided to have some smoked salmon on fresh home made bread. Earlier today I made some fresh bread (a hemp hearts and walnuts wholemeal bread) which I’m now eating with some smoked salmon:
Laphroaig Islay single malt whisky, smoked salmon and homemade breadThe whisky is the Laphroaig 10yo cask strength batch 04, which I had opened for my 10 years Twitter milestone (with New Year’s Day in mind). A rather lovely dram, going down very nicely while the Radetzky-Marsch is playing as I type this.
Have a great 2019 everyone!
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As I eluded to yesterday, today marks the start of a new chapter in my life, even though I don’t know yet where it will lead me. All I know is that over the coming weeks I’ll be looking for new career opportunities, while also aiming to use the opportunity for a few other changes. But at the same time there are some constants, including my love for Islay and some annual rituals/traditions:
West Berkshire New Year’s Day dawn
This morning I got up early and left for my morning walk before dawn, on the return leg I saw a lovely colourful New Year’s day first dawn of the year sky over one of the West Berkshire fields I pass on my route. When I returned home I got the oven going for some fresh “New Year’s Day bread”, one Hemp Hearts bread and one fruit bread. Then it was time for one of my New Year’s Day traditions (mentioned on this blog before eg in 2020 and in 2018), the New Year’s Day concert from Vienna with a dram of Islay single malt whisky and my New Year’s Day brunch.
The whisky is the same as for Christmas, the Kilchoman Single Cask 11 Years Old Bourbon Cask. The brunch is the aforementioned Hemp Hearts bread, scrambled eggs and some smoked salmon. The salmon “slowly smoked for 12 hours over oak & whisky cask chippings”, so I’m imagining they were Islay whisky cask chippings.
New Year’s Day brunch with an Islay dramThe concert has now reached the encores with the famous Blue Danube, so I’m going to finish now and wish you all a happy and healthy New Year 2022!
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Author: Armin Grewe
I blog about Islay.
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