[Edit: Photos from Ghent available here.]
So we woke up the next morning feeling FAR better than we had any right to after the long day and night of drinking. Perhaps walking 40 minutes back to our B&B helped.
We decided to stay one more night in Ghent, but the B&B we were in had no rooms available. So we had breakfast and I did some phoning and found a very funky attic room in an artist’s house. He was a painter, sculptor and potter. A rather eclectic individual. Somehow, when I first examined the room I missed the TRAPEZE that was hanging from the ceiling over the bed. Just call me Mr Observant. [In my defense, it was all coiled up and you had to untie it let it down. Ahem.]
After schelpping our luggage there we set out for our day. I had wanted to go the the Ghent Design Museum. It contained 2 items of interest.
The first one that attracted my attention to the museum, was the Aprilia Moto 6.5 which was right in the lobby. That got me in the door and we wandered around and found the Charles Eames exhibit. It was a neat exhibit, including about 6 short videos that Eames himself had narrated. One was about the production of the fiberglass chairs, and others were odd stop motion vignettes of parades using papermache or clay figurines. Very odd.
We were then off to the Dulle Griet for a beer and some nibbles. We had a Westmalle Dubble on tap as the house Dulle Griet blonde on tap.
Then Kaddee said that she had read of a scotch bar in Ghent that is somewhat well regarded. So we went off to find it. It is a cellar bar in this alley. As we were about to go down, I heard the mournful wail of not one but TWO sets of bagpipes. Now, I am not a big fan of the bagpipes. In fact I will usually beat feet in the opposite direction of a set of bagpipes. Especially since they are usually played by amateurs with far too much enthusiasm. Anyway, I refused to go down into a cellar bar that was being serenaded by TWO bagpipers. So we waited a few minutes and discussed where we would go. Perhaps we could come back later. Then, blissfully, the bagpipes stopped. Ah, it was safe to enter.
So down we went.
The place is called The Glengarry (sic) . It is run by a nice Belgian fellow named Bob. That is his picture on the webpage. The page is, unfortunately only in Flemish. But he is an interesting fellow. He runs the largest Scotch club in Europe and has written a few books on Scotch. He has had a very long relationship with Bowmore and was a “guest distiller” for a short period of time there (2 weeks). He tells a good story of a Scotch tasting he did to celebrate the 1500th tasting that he has run. It was all Bowmore’s and had notified the local importer that he was doing it.
He had about a dozen or so people for the tasting and the local importer wanted to say a few words. He spoke of Bob’s vast knowledge and experience and said that he had a surprise for him. Percy McPherson, the distillery manager for Bowmore and a long time friend of Bob, had flown in for the tasting. Bob said he cried like a baby.
Through the telling of this story, Bob is pouring us Scotch. We had
- Bruichladden WMD II – 1991. aka “The Yellow Submarine” a 14YO
- Clynlish 14YO – slight smoke and salt
- Caol Ila 10yo 1995 – The Caol Ila’s are some of my favorites. This was a Murry McDavid bottling. Bourbon cask followed by Chenin Blanc cask. A beautiful wee dram it was
- Glenfarclas 12 bottled in 1965(!). Sherry cask finished, very dark color. A delicious chocolate-y flavor, very reminiscent of a port.
It was a lovely hour or two well spent. And NO BAGPIPES.
After that the rest of the day is kind of a blur. I remember having dinner but I have no notes about any further beers we drank that day. I think I decided that trying anything special at that point was going to be a wast of time. Go figure.