The Scotch Malt Whisky Society
This was a real treat for me. I had never been inside this establishment in the New Town in Edinburgh, though I had passed by it during my walks around the city. I have a novel almost ready to publish, which features a dystopian take on the city, and has action taking place in both the Old and New Towns, and this location is the type of place some of the more dubious characters would frequent.
28 Queen Street is a four-storey Georgian building and is home for the Edinburgh branch of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society. You can join and become a member, which gives you access to the member’s bar. The downstairs bar is open to non-members. There are four function rooms and according to their website each of their whisky bars boast over 500 exclusive single malts from across Scotland and beyond, so there is a fantastic selection to choose from.
I was invited to experience their five course taster menu with a specially selected whisky to accompany each course. It was on the top floor in the Pip Hills Private Dining Room and was organised by DIGIT, Scotland’s biggest tech events firm. I’ve been invited to similar dinners before, but for various reasons had never managed to attend. I’ve spoken at a DIGIT conference previously so I was delighted to receive an invite and be able to finally get along. Around two dozen folk involved in the IT and cyber security sector were invited and it was nice to see some I had already met while attending conferences in previous years.
The food was first class as was the whisky. I finished everything and have nothing to add other than it was amazing. That goes for the service as well. Such a social event is a rare occurrence for me. As illustrated in this blog, I’m regularly out and about visiting numerous places and taking in the sights and sounds to use as inspiration for future books. I’m a writer, but I don’t spend all of my time hiding away, tapping at a keyboard. After all, there is more to life than spending your lunch hour editing your latest work in progress. However, a specific social event like this is a rare thing for me. Despite having delivered talks at numerous conferences and appeared at the Festival Fringe, I’m quiet and reserved and quite nervous at social events and tend not to go to industry dinners, black-tie events, award ceremonies and the like, despite receiving numerous invites. It’s just not for me. This event however, was very informal, and all about getting together to talk about whatever came to mind while enjoying some wonderful food and drink. And as I said, there were some folk I had met before and it was good to catch-up. I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and surprised myself how much I can blether away about random stuff. I’m usually quiet in company, and indeed in meetings and tend to listen more than I talk, so it was a different experience for me. I would certainly do it again if the opportunity comes up. It’s come at a good time, as I have a lot of writing to finish up this year, and there is a balance between being out and around people while still having to sit at a laptop for hours on end. I still enjoy writing, but it can’t be at the expense of everything else that I could be doing. Finding that balance is tricky, and I still find it hard despite the years I’ve been juggling with all the events, interruptions and distractions that life inevitably throws at me. I’m sure I’ve said it before, but a lot of my writing is about thinking, rather than putting words on a page (though these sessions do result in a lot of scribbles in notebooks). There does come a point though, when the need to actually get the novel into shape becomes overwhelming, and there is nothing else I can do other than do it. However, this doesn’t mean I’m going to hold back on visiting new places. I just need to find that balance and hold on to it.
The Fiction Factory 