One of the good things about getting old for me is the opportunity to explore things I ignored during the go-go years. When I was young, I didn’t have the inclination or the time to appreciate alcohol. My dad was always a whiskey drinker, and seemed to enjoy it but I couldn’t see the appeal. Almost out of necessity, I became a rum drinker while living in the Caribbean but once we left, I never felt compelled to continue the habit. About a decade later, my wife, Gwynne, and I took up wine tasting, even hosting a number of parties to imbibe the stuff, but I never much liked wine and it didn't grow on me; after a couple years, I was wondering what the big deal was about alcohol in general. This is where serendipity enters the story: alcohol in Washington State is very expensive but while my wife, Gwynne, and I were at Costco in California, where it was half the price, and I couldn't just pass up such a good deal, but seeing the selection of whiskeys available, I couldn’t decide which to buy; I didn’t even know the difference between Scotch and Bourbon so I bought one of everything, and since Costco only sold the big bottles, there was a lot of it.
Somehow, even though it cost hundreds of dollars for something we don't buy, I was very proud of how much money we'd saved. I started watching YouTube videos on whiskey, and can now bore just about anybody to death with my knowledge. We’ve had several tastings at our house, and I’ve zeroed into the one I like, not because of the taste, hell no, it tastes like dirt; no, it’s because I own a piece of the land it’s made from: 1 square foot of the Scottish island of Insley to be exact, and now I'm a “Friend of Laphroaig” or FOLaphroaig according to the website.
How did that happen, you make ask? Well, anyone who knows me can tell you I’m that guy who reads the papers that come inside the boxes when you buy things. Laphroaig, a scotch, comes in a box; I don’t know why some liquor boxes the bottle, but the Laphroaig box had a little booklet in the box too. I set it aside for later reading, and that night in bed, I was surprised to see the booklet consisted of a secret unique number and a website I could enter it into to get my square foot of the island. In fact, in Google Maps, a pin appeared on my plot, “Martin & Gwynne’s Little Piece of Paradise.” That comes in handy so that every person I meet, sometimes for the first time, can be impressed when I whip out my phone and zoom into the exact spot in Satellite mode; you can almost see my peat.
I haven’t learned to like Laphroaig yet but I work on it every day.
FOLaphroaig
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Martin Hash
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FOLaphroaig
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Shamedia, Shamdemic, Shamucation, Shamlection, Shamconomy & Shamate Change
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Smitty-48
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TheReal_ND
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Re: FOLaphroaig
This is interesting information. I'm going to squat on your land lease and nobody can stop me.
