Signal to Noise

I finally finished a bottle of Bushmills ten-year-old single-malt Irish whiskey that I carried back from a trip to Ireland that Jan and I took a while ago. I am not a particularly heavy drinker. Well, check that; I am indeed a drinker (a little) and according to dubious science I am indeed heavy, so I guess the previous statement is not strictly true. But around the ole household a bottle tends to last quite a while. The aforementioned Bushmills has lasted more than fifteen years.

When I had the bottle’s lifetime pointed out to me I realized how many people have taken a drink from that particular bottle (via a glass mind you), I had more than a touch of melancholy. A lot of good people (certainly as far as I am concerned) have bent an elbow holding a glass of that whiskey (including my father who reached for it rather than a more common Canadian variety beside it when he desired a base for his drink with ginger ale). Some of the melancholy likely came from the funeral scene in Waking Ned Devine which was playing as I finished my glass.

So, in keeping with he end of the movie and the history and heritage of the bottle, I toast the friends that shared it with me and the fond memories of those times, Sláinte.