Soup Supper and Whisky Tasting 

On Friday,  Nov. 14, from 6:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m.  we meet for our Soup Supper and Whisky Tasting in the Ocean Terrace Room in Hokua Condo, 1288 Ala Moana Blvd. Honolulu, where Susan and Scott MacKinnon live. (This date is changed from the original).

Guest parking is on ground level under the building. Turn mauka from Ala Moana Blvd. to Queen Street at the ewa side of the building. Enter the parking area past the PF Chang and Tango restaurants.  From the parking area find your way to the lobby where attendants will direct you to the Ocean Terrace Room.

Several special soups will be prepared by a committee of members. The rest of the meal will be potluck.  Please bring a pupu or a bread or a dessert to share. 

Our single malt whisky tasting will be led by Bruce McEwan and David Gochros of the distributor Remy Martin. We can expect to see an informative DVD about whisky making and to taste 3 to 5 single malt whiskies.

.The charge for this evening is $5 per person.  So we can have enough soup, chairs, and drams ready, reservations are required. To reserve, phone or e-mail Susan MacKinnon 591-9398   or susanmack@myhokua.com

Soup making and eating is something special in Scotland. On a dreich Scottish day,  there’s nothing so restorative and nourishing as a hot bowl of  soup, simmered by a Scottish housewife. Whether it is a traditional cock-a-leekie soup, or  a Scotch broth, or a contemporary soup like carrot and coriander or sausage and lentil hot pot, you can trust it to set you right. Similarly, soup suppers have been memorable in local Caledonian Society history.

Single malt whisky is another of Scotland’s great gustatory pleasures. This gift from Scotland to the world is known in Gaelic as uisquebeatha, or “the water of life.”  Some say that a taste for single malt whisky is something one acquires. Whether you are new to single malts or a dedicated enthusiast, here’s a chance to learn a bit more about the drink that George Bernard Shaw called “liquid sunshine.”

The popular Scottish bard Robert Burns also praised “my Muse! guid auld Scotch drink” in a long poem thanking Whisky for its inspiration and including a stanza to Fortune asking for only his bare necessities:

O Whisky! Soul o’ plays an’ pranks!

Accept a Bardie’s grateful’ thanks!

*********

Fortune! If thou’ll but gie me still

Hale breeks, a scone, an’ whisky gill,                    whole trousers

And rowth o’ rhyme to rave at will,              plenty

                        Tak a’ the rest,

An’ deal’t about as thy blind skill

                        Directs thee best.