There are certain weaknesses Janet and I share. One of the most expensive ones revolves around scotch. See, we love scotch – there is nothing like a good single malt in the evening to help you wind down from a long day, or to warm you up from a cold afternoon walk. It is, as alcoholic beverages go, perfect.

But our weakness is that as our tastes evolve, we always want better scotches – and a variety of them. I mean, an 18 year old Highland Park fits most occasions, but what about when you want something with a little more oak character… or something with a stronger kick, or a nice mellowness that only comes from age. Just like people keep a variety of wine at their house, we keep a variety of scotch at the house.

At our peak, we probably had 8 or 9 open bottles, more than most bars. Some were special occasion scotches (a 26 year old Glen Albyn, a Glenrothes from my birthday year) but the rest were all there so we had the right variety to compliment our mood. Finally, we decided that we needed to cut the stock down to the essentials and have been slowly working our way through the reserves over the past few months.

However, last night we were shocked to realize that we finally did it. Aside from the special occasion scotches, we had gone through our reserves and were finally ready to buy another bottle. I had read in the latest issue of Whisky magazine that the new Talisker 18 year old, which was just relased in November, was getting amazing reviews, and sits at the top of the Island malts. This sounded promising, but unlike most of our standard scotches, this one was in limited distribution and we would need to find a good whisky shop in order to find it.

So, one quick search on the internet and we found Weinhandlung Schwarzer near the main train station, and a phone call confirmed that they had the elusive Talisker 18. As the clock struck noon, we jumped on the subway and headed out to check the store out.

Even though it looks small, the shop opened up into a large room with a fantastic selection of scotch, wine, other whiskys, absinthe and brandys. The prices were very good on the normal scotches we drink, and the woman running the shop was friendly, knowledgable and even recognized me as the person who called earlier asking about the Talisker.

We will sample the scotch tonight, but regardless of how we like the Talisker, we will certianly make this our normal scotch store in Cologne.

Schwarzer. U-Bahn DOM/Hauptbahnhof. Full of scotchy goodness!

The pinnacle of the Karneval festivities in Cologne is the Rosenmontag parade. Not knowing what to expect other than: it was long (6 hours and still going strong), it would be crowded (over 1 million people downtown) and that it involved people throwing candy (this is surprisingly true) and everyone would be in costume (or at least in a funny hat) we headed down around lunch time to try and see the parade.

Coming out of the Dom/Hbf U-Bahn station was the first challenge – the crowd was so large that it pushed to the top of the stairwell that led down into the subway. We were able to get a spot that could almost see the floats that were about to start coming by. After an hour of waiting for the parade (it started a few kilometers away at 10:49am (aka 11 minutes before 11)), we decided to push through the crowds in search of beer and something to nosh on. Janet figured that if we could make it through the outer shell of people, the inside plaza would probably be empty.

She was right. After making it through the drunken horde, we found beer stands, reibekuchen (potato pancake) stands, sausage stands and enough space to get some air and try to fing a vantage point where we could watch the crowds and the parade.

We stayed for a few hours, watching costumes and floats go by, leaving to come home a little before 3pm. It’s 5:30 and we are still watching the parade on television. After a week of celebration and a day’s worth of parade, I have to wonder if it is just too much of a good thing… or is it just too much?

The crowds from Roncalliplatz, near the main Cathedral.

Those Energizer bunnies just keep going… and going… and going… to the beer

People as seen from the Platform near the Alter Markt

… and your faithful editors, the Cat and the Dragon

I wish I had words to explain this evening…

This evening, my neighborhood hosted the Geisterzug, one of the many parades that are part of Köln’s Carneval festivities.

The Geisterzug, or Ghost Parade wound through the Agnesviertel, with the crowds starting around 6pm, and it is still going strong now at midnight.

We started at 6pm at Havana having a few Sion Kölsch. From there, we went to Früh im Veedel for three more, followed by three .33l bottles of Mühlen Kölsch at the street vendors, two Gaffels at Balthasar and a final Sion at Zweipann at the corner. This doesn’t include the large Kölsch this afternoon at Früh or the Gaffel at Kaufhof this afternoon. Yes, you truly can’t appreciate Karneval without a a Kölsch in your hand.

Words just can’t describe it. Drum corps, people in skeleton costumes, and a few thousand people in the streets wandering to the eis-stadion across from our apartment. I would write more, but I am debating whether to headi out and join the fray once again…