But this is not a mystery story, and with Dame Agatha's permission for using one of her titles, let me get on with this little anecdote.
I love the occasional tipple, and enjoy my small collection of whiskey. Given my memory, I did not remember where I picked up a bottle of Glenmorangie's Cellar 13 single malt.
When I opened the box and saw the light golden coloured liquid, I was not terribly impressed. It has recently become trendy to enjoy the stronger tasting, dark coloured single malts, especially the ones from Islay. This single malt was almost transparent, it was so light in colour. But one sip and I was in heaven.
My taste buds are not developed enough to distinguish between the different elements of the whiskey, but the overall effect was so good that I hid the bottle from the prying eyes of guests and only ever partook of it when I was alone. This goes against my generous nature for sharing my cabinet, but I could not afford to finish the bottle before I found another. Notice that there is no age on the label, but a quick search told me that the whiskeys used in this single malt were between 10 & 12 years old. In scotch terms, this makes the whiskey 10 years old. As the name suggests, it comes from a single cellar.
So the hunt started. Over a period of the last 3-4 years, I looked for this whiskey in all the places in the world that I traveled to, but without luck. As I neared the half way mark in the bottle, I stopped drinking it. In my mind, it needed to be treasured.
About a year or so ago, I saw a Glenmorangie exhibit at Edinburgh airport and rushed over to ask the comely young lady about their Cellar 13. "The cellar is empty", she said, "we sold the last bottles two years ago". Disappointment spread through me, much like the warmth of that golden liquid. That half bottle hidden in my cabinet had just become even more precious. I hid it away even deeper.
A few months later, a close friend of ours, who is a great fan of malts, was moving back from Zurich to Texas, and we walked into Eddie's Whiskies in Horgen to buy him a bottle of single malt. This is an amazing store, by the way, and one that you should visit if you are in the area and a fan of single malts. Being web obsessed, we looked up the list of bottles in the shop before we drove up.
I guess the alert reader knows what's coming next. You are right, the catalogue listed Glenmorangie Cellar 13 amongst it's contents! This made me leave home immediately and drive faster.
"Yes, we still have that label", said Eddie, pointing to the shelf where there were three boxes stacked unobtrusively.
"I'll take them all. Do you have any more at the back?"
"Those are all that I have."
They are now in my cabinet, and the next guest we had at home was allowed to see the box and choose to have a wee dram if he so desired.
http://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/P-2453.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None
http://www.eddies.ch
