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I know it is incorrect to change fields and jump wagons. I have heard a lot about how when the going gets tough, the tough get absconding. Or drinking. At least that’s what happens in my case. The difference is that the more I drink, the tougher I think I am.

Back to this new wagon, let me define the perimeter first. I, ladies and gentleman, am pretty much the standard definition of an alcoholic. I enjoy my drink so I drink often. Also, I do not discriminate against the type of tipple, provided they are of high quality, I will make any glass my arm candy for the evening, or morning, or… you get the gist.

But I am a discerning alcoholic if there ever was one. I don’t hold any bias against any particular drink, but I do seem to have set moods for each. Some days I feel like one and on others, like another. Recently, a certain Mr.Kanudia asked me to come and taste whisky with him (that too cask-strength single malts) at the exclusive reserved SMWS (scotch malt and whisky society) section of the Rubicon bar at the Leela NCR.

Being summer, I wondered whether I was about to meet a fellow tippler. For even I seem to imbibe more of the cool stuff and less of the heated spirited stuff in the summer months.

The Rubicon bar has some very rare casks from top distilleries and they bottle these every year. The trick lies in not releasing the name of the distillery. Instead, and this is where the wine link became apparent, they merely publish very visual and poetic tasting notes about each whisky along with a small hint about the distillery. All in all, it was very much like a blind tasting with wines.

The notes were pretty accurate too, mind you.

The good thing was yet to come. This was the whisky itself. Five of them in total. Or so I think. When one is tasting cask-strength whiskies, it’s hard to keep count after one.

But that was the wine-like beauty about them. So smooth and subtle were they that I was able to drink them without any need for dilution. Cask-strength is rarely lesser than 50% concentration of alcohol which means that it can pack the heat. But the fun part was that some of these whiskies had been aged in casks that had previously held wine.

There was one which had been kept in Port casks and hence it was a tad pinkish in colour and also had the fruitiness of a ruby Port! Another, which traced origins to a Sherry cask was mineral-lined, salty, with subtle hints of caramel.

It was becoming hard to tell where the whisky and wine divide lay with these. I suggest that for all those who like wine try these. The catch is that it’s a “members only” privilege. I don’t know what the membership costs but I am sure it’s worth it.