Paint it black.
Black Douglas + William Lawson’s whisky.
I was recently invited to a Burns Supper, which, to those unaware, is an evening of whisky, poetry, whisky, Scottish cuisine, whisky, song, whisky and whisky in honour of the famed Scots poet Robert Burns. Tradition dictates that we all make a contribution to the evening (mostly whisky) but the host tasked me to provide a pre-dinner cocktail for about twenty guests. I initially settled on an old version of the Robert Burns cocktail (a bit of a no-brainer that one) tweaked it until I was happy and then got on with a busier than normal week. On the eve of the event I realised I was way short of one of the essential ingredients (absinthe) and, once I ran the numbers, pretty tight on supply of the Scotch* itself. While the latter could be quickly rectified the former could not so a last minute change of tack was required. I settled on a modified version of my very own Black Watch (Scotch, Ramazzotti, Italian vermouth and black walnut bitters, stirred over a big cube) but subbed the amaro for Glayva to make it more Scottish and served it without ice in a sherry glass as an aperitif. And damn if it didn’t go down well with the guests. It’s a touch sweeter than my usual creations but when you are mixing for a largely non-cocktailhead audience that will tend to be well received. I sought a name that referenced the original drink settling on the name of a character we learned about in school who in the early 14th century gave the English invaders a bit of a hard time and was known – for his notoriety rather than ethnicity – as The Black Douglas. They should make a film about that dude. Anyway, further to the story of the Burns Supper my mixing Scotch was entirely depleted by the exercise requiring the remains of my Monkey Shoulder, Finlaggan and infinity bottle (which happily combined quite nicely) requiring a total mixing Scotch restock. My go-to base mixing Scotch has long been the excellent vatted malt Monkey Shoulder but the price has been climbing steadily for a while now and I wondered if I could find something satisfactory for less of my hard earned moneys. We don’t need a great deal of complexity or age in a mixing whisky so I wondered if a (gasp) blended whisky might suffice. I’d had a decent experience with William Lawson’s blended a while back and when I spotted some at €16 for a LITRE I decided to put it to the test. Lawson’s is an interesting blend in that according to what I hear its malt content comes from a single Speyside distillery, namely MacDuff (aka Glen Deveron) and indeed this is alluded to on the bottle. And that makes it a fairly simple affair free of peaty notes and likely only lightly aged. The label is cheesier than it used to be with a robust young kilted Highlander on the green bottle as the owners, Bacardi, are chasing a younger demographic these days. But it would be a mistake to be put off as I found Lawson’s surprisingly elegant with a lightly fruity nose and taste typically Speysidey: floral with hints of dried fruit and honey. It’s not as “meaty” as Monkey Shoulder due to the dilution of those malt flavours with the column still grain whisky but the flavours are not a million miles away. Which should perhaps come as no surprise as the sources of the malt whisky of both are a mere 30 miles apart. It mixes very well being light and approachable in flavour yet having enough presence to make any cocktail taste sufficiently “Scotchy” in much the same way as Monkey Shoulder for half the price. And, indeed, in the Black Douglas it works just fine. For drinks like a Scotch Old Fashioned or other very spirit forward cocktails you might want to move a bit more up-market into the cheaper single malts or vatted malts but the rest of the time I’m perfectly happy to mix with William Lawson’s and will be using it as a solid base for my rebooted Scotch infinity bottle. It’s an absolute steal at the price, widely available in Europe at least and is highly mixable so for that use I’d rate it a straight B. So there.
“And the Black Douglas recipe?”, I hear you ask. Here you go:
Black Douglas.
2oz / 60ml Scotch whisky (eg. William Lawson’s, Monkey Shoulder etc.)
0.5oz / 15ml Glayva whisky liqueur (Drambuie will also suffice).
0.5oz /15ml Italian (sweet) vermouth.
2 dashes Fee’s Black Walnut bitters.
Stir with ice and strain into a nick & nora or large sherry glass.
Garnish with orange peel.
Toast Sir James Douglas (c.1286-1310).
*I prefer the term Scottish Whisky to the lazy “Scotch” but I think it’s probably a bit of a losing battle at this point so this is not going to be the hill I die on. “Expresso” for espresso on the other hand…
