Drink
Farewell to a bottle and a half per day – I have finally embarked on a diet
Are there still travelling fairs? In many villages, they used to be part of the annual round. For weeks, the…
I’m grateful for my grateful drinking friend
The phone rang. ‘You are the last person in the world I should be talking to’, proclaimed an old friend…
Tasting the true island spirit: single malts from the Isle of Arran
Arran, in the Firth of Clyde, is an island whose charms vary with the seasons. In summer, the hills are…
Found in a friend’s cellar — the wines of a lifetime
In longevity, great wine can march with human life. Creating (better still, maintaining) a fine cellar really is a compact…
Artisan gins leave me in low spirits
Spare me the hype over craft gins
Rare whiskies can be a better investment bet than first-growth clarets
Henry Jeffreys says a rare Scotch can be a better investment bet than first-growth claret
I survived a hen party — just
The hen party was seated at an outside restaurant table under the plane trees when I arrived. They sat with…
My love affair with single malt whisky
Mark Palmer on his late-blooming love affair with single malt whisky
Burgundies that taste of T.S. Eliot
Eliot. After 50 years trying to make sense of his verse, and at the risk of admitting to rampant philistinism,…
The wonder of Wetherspoons
Of all the stories I’ve heard about the fallout from Brexit — families divided, work jeopardised, friendships ended — the…
From kittens to claret: an ideal education
Call me a sentimental old whatever, but watching a four-year old hearing The Tale of Samuel Whiskers for the first…
Bloody Marys and the funniest woman in the House of Lords
To the Western Isles, or at least to its embassy in Belgravia. Boisdale restaurant always claims to be extra-territorial. There…
The only good thing about the Soviet Union was cheap caviar
I know an immensely grand aristocratic lady, impeccably mannered, with a regal grace and presence, who cannot be trusted near…
A better year ahead? That’s what the tsar expected in 1917
Someone came up with a century-old quotation plangent with irony and sadness: ‘The year 1916 was cursed: 1917 will surely…
How pub quizzes became normal
For more than 20 years now, I have been trudging up the hill to the Prince of Wales in Highgate…
Should I hang myself out to dry again this January?
And so it begins again. This time last year, I decided to see how long I could last without alcohol.…
Had someone deliberately messed up Lord Archer’s dinner?
I first ate at the London version of Harry’s Bar in the early 1990s. Back then, Jeffrey Archer and I…
Want to understand Italy's economy? Look at its wines, not its GDP
The other day, I had lunch with the grandest person I know. Forget 1066: Adrian Ziani de Ferranti can trace…
A curse on silky teabags
Beware this poncy material and its flavour-free brews
The Odd Bottles now have a paramilitary wing
This is something to be said for starting to celebrate Christmas before the end of the grouse season. It provides…
Should Nato have embraced Russia?
An aeon ago, when I was first invited to the odd City lunch, there was a standard formula: G&T, white,…
The sacred mission to stop real whisky becoming too popular
A long-standing friend of mine is a lucky fellow. He has spent his career doing exactly what he was born…
With great wine comes great anxiety
We were surpassing Sydney Smith. His idea of heaven was pâté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets. Our…
The no-nonsense greatness of Australian wine
Any Australian who admits to not having convict ancestors loses caste. When granted a coat of arms, the smart ones…
The delicious secrets of the Douro Valley
They’re called quintas, Joana tells us, because the rich families who owned the land along this stretch of the Douro…
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