An excerpt, with Caramel Logs and Glenlivet

Served on entry: Glenlivet 12 single malt whisky (‘Original Stories’ Licensed Dram) and a Tunnocks Caramel Log

The idea for a live interactive musical extravaganza (one man, a guitar, several bottles of relatively cheap booze, cheese, chocolate, biscuits, possibly an audience) based on my book Holy Waters stemmed from an average Friday night chez Morton…and three previous shows: The Malt and Barley Revue, a lengthy meditation on single malt whisky and Scotland; My Bad Gospel, a similar (but sober) autobiographical reflection on evangelical Christianity; and The Fairly Good Show. This last was ill-advisedly combined with an attempt to cycle the length off Scotland and attracted audiences in single figures; in one case (Edinburgh), no figures at all.

All these featured, for my sins, me, and for theirs, Angus MacRaild, Jon Beach James Morton and Susan Morrison. All the shows had their origins at the Belladrum Festival’s Verb Garden tent, then curated by the long-suffering denizens of promotional partnership Fair Pley, Jim Lister and Stephen Wright.

Some interesting libations were consumed during (and after) these various performances, notably when Angus, before his millionaire-entrepreneur Decadent Drinks days, supplied some of the rare and obscure whiskies he was then procuring for auction. But for many what The Malt and Barley Revue provided was the memorable taste sensation of combining a Speyside whisky such as Glenlivet 12 with (if you haven’t tried this, you’re in for a treat) a Tunnocks Caramel Log. For those reading outwith the Scottish central belt, a Caramel Log is…well. To call it a biscuit is not just an understatement. It’s blasphemy. It is a near-miraculous combination of the chewy and the crisp, the toasted and glutinous, the sweet and the very sweet. It contains coconut, so is one, possibly two of your health-giving five fruits a day. Or vegetables. Or nuts. It can pull a loose tooth. So it’s a cheap dentist too.

What follows may give you an inkling, a flavour of what The Holy Waters Songbook show is like, was like, may be like again someday. Keep scrolling down for music and a sort of video.

Here are some instructions, or advice if you wish to participate, albeit remotely, in the Holy Waters Songbook consumption phase…

It goes without saying that you’ll have nosed (sniffed) and tasted the whisky, which comes from the oldest legal distillery in Scotland. There are a bewildering variety of Glenlivet cask finishes these days, but the 12-year-old ‘Original Stories’ Licensed Dram (stupid unnecessary branding nonsense) is a good place to start in 2023. Possibly you’ll have encountered fruity notes mixed with vanilla and biscuits of a very biscuity variety. But maybe you have biscuits on your mind. Perhaps you are someone to whom biscuits are a dietary priority, a way of life.

Anyway, unwrap the Caramel Log (love that cheap orange and yellow plasticised foil) and take a bite. Let that coconut and caramel sensation impact on your tastebuds, then chew approximately 12 times to match the years that whisky has been ageing in cask. Retain said gloop in your chamber of mastication. Then sip/glug one mouthful of whisky, which should be sitting around 48% alcohol by volume and is therefore not going to strip the fillings out of your teeth, but is strong enough to pack an uppercut to the jaw area. Mix the two, allowing your palate to absorb the combined flavours, while various neurological receptors begin to absorb sugar and alcohol.

Honestly, it’s a spiritual experience. And it is, in that synthesis of cheap confectionary and expensive, aged  distillate, Lowland and Highland, pure Scotland, by the way.

Here’s the song that opens The Holy Waters Songbook live show. Or opened. The whole thing, with tastings, will be performed at least once more, in Shetland, just before Christmas. If we’re spared.

Holy Waters: Searching for the Sacred in a Glass, by Tom Morton

Drinks Book of the Year, Fortnums and Mason Awards 2023