Q: What do you get if you take a bucketful of barley, roast it over an open peat fire, add some water, stick it in a pot with some yeast to ferment, then boil it up and collect the result?
A: Arrested for illegal alcohol production!
Unless, that is, you happen to be a professional, in which case, you end up with the most delicious drink on the planet - whisky. If you modify and refine the rules just a wee bit, you get something even better: Scottish single malt whisky.
Many, many years ago, I developed a taste for whisky and have been collecting Scottish malts seriously since 1998. Our collection currently contains a total of well over 600 bottles. I have to admit, though, that some of these bottles are only very small! My collection is constantly changing, though I am gradually building up a collection of whiskies distilled in the year I was born - 1968. I currently have about 30 of these in the collection (including a few miniature bottles), but I add to the number whenever I can.
In 2006, I formed my own company so that I could spend most of my free weekends running from place to place teaching people all about whisky. Basically, anyone can hire me for an evening, I'll turn up in full Scottish dress and tell them everything they always wanted to know about the Water of Life. It's tiring work at times, but I wouldn't swap it for anything!