Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Jack Daniels

According to my list, whisky, gin and vodka are the only alcoholic drinks I can take.

I liked whisky but have been bothered for some time it doesn't seem to do me any good. I'm used to drinking Scotch whisky, preferably Glenmorangie or some such, and last Christmas everybody gave me bottles of it.

Recently I've been trying out American strains, mainly Jack Daniels. I don't know much about this but undoubtedly Scotch is richer and more flavoured than Jack Daniels and this is apparently because it's matured in oak caskets and distilled using peat - or something like that.

Now because only about one scientific study has ever been done of salicylate levels, the odds are it used American whisky. Maybe Scotch picks up salicylate from its caskets, peat and other natural processes.

So on Saturday I went to a party and drank Jack Daniels all evening, quite a lot I have to confess, roughly speaking as much as I'd normally drink in a month. I did take a Singulair earlier in the day and later wondered whether I should check more carefully whether it mixes with alcohol. Sunday - no symptoms, no hangover. So it looks like those bottles of Scotch will make good Christmas presents for other people this year.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When I was in college, I could pretty much trigger a sinus infection by drinking scotch. In those days I wasn't drinking anything very high-end, mostly blends like J&B and Cutty Sark. I learned pretty quickly that I did not suffer the same effects from bourbon or Irish whiskey. Over the years, I've had less trouble with single malts like Glenfiddich and other Speyside whiskies, and no trouble at all with Macallan (thank heavens). My suspicion is that the allergies some of us suffer have to do with peat, and interestingly, I just learned Macallan does not use peat. I've also heard a theory that scotch allergies could be related to iodine, which also comes from peat.