As I mentioned in my last blog entry, (The End of the Road?) I had reached a point where I was not sure what my next whisky related move would be. When I started the website in 2011 I had set some goals and by late 2014 I had basically met them and my website was less active than JaDaveon Clowney. Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor after that brilliant joke and remind you all that JD Clowney was the Houston Texans first pick, and first pick overall in 2015 NFL draft, but that he contributed literally nothing during his first season and has so far spent his entire professional career injured and inactive. I told you it was a brilliant joke. Back to the whisky and so my solution was simply to back off a little, try not to worry about it, rework the website over a little and await inspiration. In hindsight this is clearly a strategy I have learned from observing the whisky industry and the fail safe marketing tactic for all tired brands; rework the packaging. If you are reading this blog entry then the website update has now happened (unless you are reading this over my shoulder while I type it on a flight back to Houston which makes you a little scary so please stop).
Rather remarkably fate did choose to intervene and while performing my website surgery I have been offered a new job this summer based in Singapore. As my constant typos, errors, inaccuracies and lack of palate consistency clearly demonstrate I am no writer (despite my brilliant Clowney joke above!) and have to find other ways to sustain my family and my expensive drinking habit. From September 2015 I will do that based in South East Asia. This move presents me with an astonishing opportunity and exposure to a whole new whisky scene that will include, but not be limited to, the brands and expressions only available in Asia, new bars and whisky events in a new city, other bloggers to meet and lots of travel retail opportunities. I also hope to work in trips to Japan and Taiwan (and perhaps India) so I can annoy distillery tour guides with my note taking and ridiculous questions on the other side of the world! In short not only does my website get refreshed but in a few months but my whole exposure to the world whisky will be refreshed and a whole new series of opportunities present themselves.
Between now I then I promise to use the coming months to iron out the remaining kinks in the website, work through the long list of typos (or as I frequently joke “tpyos”) and other corrections I have noted but never got around to fixing and of course will post some new tasting notes. If you read this and are based in Singapore please feel free to reach out to me and I will be happy to buy you a dram and explain the NFL, Houston Texans, the 2015 draft and the joke above. I promise you it will be worth it.