We whisky fanatics are lucky. There are so many different aspects to this amber liquid with which to get our geek on. And bloody geeks we are.

A couple of weeks ago, I was drinking whisky with my brother, when we got into a conversation about tasting notes. We were on holiday in Cornwall and I’d poured us both a dram.

Or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the distillery visit halo effect.

How might I select this bottle? It’s our 1,000th review after all: the Big K, the Grand, the Roman M, the Chiliad, the Bag o’ Sand.

A quick Instahoot post threw me down a rabbit hole of Dire Straits so vast and deep that this bottle of whisky has now been intrinsically linked to their music. It’s funny how that happens.

I’m starting to write this just after submitting my Hazelburn review, although you may remember it as the Ardbeg rant. Following the news of the 17yo coming back in a less than respectable presentation, I desperately needed some positive serendipity.

Spending most of my whisky reading time here at Dramface HQ makes looking at other whisky websites an interesting experience.

It’s online whisky award time; OSWA season. To call it the Oscars of online whisky sounds a bit much, but to me, it’s a bit like that.

Here in the UK, as I write this, it’s officially Autumn. The leaves on the trees have already taken on a rusty-brown hue. The air is starting to feel distinctly crisp on the morning dog walk, and although I’ve so far resisted the urge to put the heating on or to light the wood-burner, I can’t say that I haven’t been tempted.

If we’re all honest with ourselves, we’re all magpies. Drawn to shiny surfaces, colourful prints and contoured glass phials, we buckle at the knees for beautiful objects. Anyone who’s held a cobalt-tinted poison bottle will know what I mean, when I say there’s a tactility and childlike endearment in the weighty, jewel-like, glossy transparency of glass vessels.

Can you remember when whisky became more than just a drink? When it became more than something you just considered a strong spirit that sat in the drink’s cabinet at home? When did you drink for taste and experience rather than a social catalyst while with friends? When did you notice and differentiate the aromas and flavours a dram could contain?

With the recent news that the wreck of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance had been found 3km below the surface of the Weddell Sea in the Antarctic, comments on social media quickly turned to thoughts if any of his whisky had survived, other than the supplies that were found under the hut* that was built for his 1908 Antarctic expedition. This blend was later recreated by Richard Patterson of Whyte & Mackay fame, but my thoughts started to turn to lost whisky of another kind.

All gifts are generous and gratefully received. Some gifts are more generous than others, but it's the motivation and desire behind them that really matters.

As an inexperienced whisky drinker, I listen to the sage, battle-won advice of the elders. It’s just how it’s done in whiskyland. I look on in awe at the wizened custodians of the good word of whisky, and wonder just what they’ve seen in their time here on this shoogly planet.

What do you know about Glen Albyn? How about that for an opening question? I’ve written about the distillery once - incoming - here at Dramface, but that was more about how the trio of much maligned Inverness distilleries have been overlooked and remain fairly underrepresented. So, what do you know?

To the east of my sitting position here in the Perth & Kinross-shire countryside, the soft rolling farmland arrives at the foot of the Lomond hills and rapidly upwards does the green grass go.