There’s a specific breed of person who gets off on long hours typing at an old laptop to talk about the food they couldn’t afford, that is, if it wasn’t otherwise a part of their job. Online I’m en guard and armed with the belief that, in a sea of the city’s food writers, the ascent to print is only as far as the next assignment. For this web-jockey the assignment was a month of the finest in Canadian whiskies and one fine Scotch whisky. You know, the stuff that legends are made out of… that is, if you actually like rolling with the “amber cowboy”.

…in all honesty, after mainlining the 40 proof for over 30 minutes there’s a lot that gets lost in the haze…

When it comes to whisky, call it what you will, scotch, bourbon, rye, but it all tastes how I imagine paint thinner does, like acetate and old leather. After a solid month of sampling various whiskies, I discovered that it takes a lot of chutzpah to admit that I, a food writer with grand ambitions, would rather unclog shower heads with it then drink it.

The social reprisal of this revelation has minimal effect on the girl who used to get pitying glances from high ranking peers for simply being on a first name basis with the serving staff. During those moments I could see a direct correlation between pay scale and incorruptibility. For those in the need to know, my wages currently settle somewhere in the area between indifference and genuineness. In short, I refuse to believe that my ability to be a friend without borders or my position as an online culinary pundit has any influence on my ability to taste, appreciate and share the varying degrees of paint thinner to those who can afford to buy it. In fact, there’s a lot of education that can happen from surfing one event to another, which is my main reason for attending these functions in the first place.