Love in a hot climate

It couldn’t make for a better love story: two luxury products from opposite sides of the world meeting up in a Bangkok bar and forming an instant union.
The first, Glenlivet, is from Scotland. Its new-found partner, the PDR cigar, hails from the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean. Part of the Gentleman’s Tour whisky dinner, they recently met up in a Bangkok speakeasy – Whisgars Ploenchit – for tasting ahead of the full-course dinner a few days later.
Like two peas in a pod of old luxury, the single malt whisky and the cigar make for excellent “bar mates”. Both have something in common: they invoke specifics of the land and the maker. Taking a dram of The Glenlivet 12 Year Old, for example, takes the imbiber to Scotland’s Speyside region where the single malt whisky is made. A puff of the PDR takes the cigar connoisseur on a similar journey.
“The single malt whisky and cigar bring a new luxury to Bangkok’s bar scene,” the party organiser said in his eulogy of the pairing.
“Single malt and cigar,” I repeat, as the barman approaches.
The small drinking den known as Whisgars bar is as a den should be – dark and gentlemanly with the mellow smell of cigars lingering in the air. Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” screens on the wall to a soundtrack of soothing light jazz
Two British imbibers talk quietly as they savour their Glenlivet while another Westerner stands at the bar, dram in hand, watching pensively as a wisp of white smoke swirls towards the ceiling. The dark and smoky ambience makes me think of a 1940’s spy film and I find myself waiting for Ilsa Lund and Victor Laszlo of “Casablanca” fame to show up to discuss fake passports.
The two English gentlemen at the table next to mine seem to be enjoying the tasting very much. Every so often, the barman drops by with fresh shots of Glenlivet aged for a progressively high number of years – 12, 15, 18 and 21.
“The 21-year-old is the best,” says one of them, raising his glass in a toast.
I couldn’t agree more. The allure of The Glenlivet Archive 21 Year Old comes from its aroma and rich and full flavour. There are notes of sandalwood and pine with a resinous note, the official tasting note tells me and after a second sip I am able to identify them. The palate is rich and full with hints of sugar and spice. It also calls for a second dram.
While the first shot takes me halfway from the bar to Speyside where The Glenlivet has been distilled since 1824 by Scotsman George Smith, the second helps me figure out that the natural spring of Speyside river is giving the whisky its distinctive taste and aroma.
By the third shot, I’m thinking I’ve had enough.
Unlike wine or gin or beer, whisky is serious business. And a single-malt Scotch is even more serious. In the days of George Smith, those who overindulged in single-malt whiskies sometimes found their way home in wheelbarrows.
And so I let my cigar burns itself out in the ashtray and leave the tasting room after my third taste of the 21- year-old nectar and make my way on foot, rather than a wheelbarrow, to Ploenchit BTS station.
Slainte, as they say in Speyside.