Food & Wine Archives - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

Cognac in the palm of your hands

24th October 2026 funtime65

And you thought that you just swallowed the stuff… well, wrong, as you’ll discover when you take Cognac in the palm of your hands.

And caress the stem of the tulip or balloon glass.

To warm her… and we always think of Cognac as a her.

All of which sensory surge is our remedy for the clocks going back and the storms coming in.

The best of chimes

It chimes too with the very weekend Cognac distillation season begins.

Beckoning in cognac house visitor season in the south-west of France.

To see the art of distillation in action for yourself.

With eight new experiences including glassblowing at Martell, watching barrels being shaped over fire at Tonnellerie Navarre.

Or following a self-guided vineyard trail at Begey.

Maison Raynaud pairs its tastings with a Templar legend as Distillerie Fontagard distils over an open fire after 150 years.

Keep French fires burning

La Nauve Hôtel & Jardin serves afternoon tea with a cognac cocktail (€25).

All reward for attentively listening to the experts, who in our experience of a drinks tour do love a question.

Thankfully our French amis have done the heavy lifting for us here.

So lie back, or better sit up, and think of the Cognac you’ll soon be supping.

From Fantagard a fifth-generation estate in Neuillac, near Jonzac (€15 €10 groups).

Where they still practise open-fire, double-distillation by hand, alongside geothermal energy and careful resource management.

The visitor tour spans the whole production cycle from vine to cellar, ending with a tasting of three cognacs.

C’est chocolat

Naturellement, nothing goes better with Cognac, except more Cognac, than chocolate.

And that leads us to Normandir Mercier (€40).

And first a history lesson, and here’s you thinking you’d got away with it.

Well, we take you back to a chestnut avenue near La Rochelle and this 1872 house.

Which pairs its cognacs with organic, seasonally changing chocolates from La Cabosse Enchantée.

Try VSOP with sea-salt ‘Île aux Trésors’ chocolate from Île de Ré, or XO alongside candied orange peel

A toast to your travels

Now Bordeaux, the hub of Cognac is just two and a half hours from Paris by train.

While we found a random return flight with Air France from under £650.

So, quaff away, saluté and…

MEET YOU AT THE BAR

Countries, Culture, Europe, Food & Wine

Taking that Van der Valk in Old Amsterdam

15th August 2026 funtime65

If you’re like us, and we know you are, you’ll be looking for clues when you’re taking that Van der Valk in Old Amsterdam.

Now one of Amsterdam’s 165 canals looks like any other to this old clogger.

But we are determined to spot ours and George and Amal’s favourite hotel, the Dylan Amsterdam.

Before this run of the detective series ends.

The best place to start is Piet and his pals’ watering hole.

Hamburger Amsterdam Angus

The Café-Restaurant Scheltema near the Royal Palace in Dam Square.

Now far from it for us to tell the Dutch detective how to do his job or live his life.

But we reckon the rake-thin tec would be a little less surly with a good square meal.

And wonder why he and his pals are only ever seen drinking and never eating the de Langes’ sumptuous fare.

Of course, as Scots carnivores our eyes fixed on the Hamburger Black Angus at €17.75 and Steak Black Angus at €22.75.

Met spek, champignons & uien

While one of our defaults is to plump for the restaurant-brand.

And Steak Scheltema at €25.75 comes met spek, champignons & uien.

Now for thrillseekers who like to go blind on a foreign menu then there’s always the Kapucijners at €18.75.

Or Kalfslever at €20.50. Both met spek en uien.

Now fat as a laughing Frans Hal cavalier and lubricated by Piet’s favourite Amstel lager.

Watch an Old Master

For art’s sake: The Night Watch in the square

You can check out, as Piet does in his investigations, the Rijksmuseum.

And check out how Rembrandt’s famous The Night Watch is a work in progress centuries after the Old Master put down his pen.

Following five years of research that began in 2019, the Rijksmuseum has launched a major restoration.

And they have carried out the work in full view of museum visitors.

In among the canals

Carrying on walking in Van der Valk’s footsteps you can’t, nor ever would want to avoid the Canal Belts.

A historic 14km network of waterways, known as the Grachtengordel.

Additional filming spots have included the Baruch Spinoza statue, the NDSM wharf and the Muziekgebouw concert hall.

Now back to scanning the scenes and trying to guess the killers as we vicariously enjoy awesome Amsterdam watching Van Der Valk.

America, Countries, Food & Wine

Stein down by the Ohio

21st July 202621st July 2026 funtime65

And for our US friends, and one particular half-German-half Scottish American, we say Prost to 50 of years of the Oktoberfest stein down by the Ohio.

The Cincinnatians (the Germans use a Z instead of a soft ‘c’) are marking the half century of Oktoberfests in timeous fashion.

With a massive two-story clock tower inspired by a traditional glockenspiel.

Which will include a biergarten on the ground floor and a performance stage on the second.

With a Cincinnati-themed backdrop and a 31ft bell tower with a working clock.

Its five 3D-printed mechanical bells will chime electronically every hour.

Which we imagine will set the weiners running for the three-day Oktoberfest Zinzinnati unique showpiece.

Everyone’s a wiener

Just mustard: Making his way to the starter’s line

The Running of the Wieners itself marks 19 years of sausage dogs dressed in hot dog costumes.

Now if you don’t have a dachshund in your life and remember they are the most popular pet dog in the USA.

You can just cheer on the runners.

And know that there are other events you can participate in.

Everybody as you would expect in a festival which draws 500,000 Cerevisaphiles and is the largest in the USA and second biggest, after Munich, in the world, joins in.

In the Gemütlichkeit Games.

The curtain-raiser which pits media personalities and civic leaders against each other in Bavarian-style competitions.

Brewing up a storm

If you’re the active kind then there are 14k and 7k brewery runs passing by famous beermakers.

With prizes and a party for all those who take part.

While if you’re the more stationary type then the Hoisting of the Steins will be more your thing.

The rules of which even the most lubricated of Beerfest visitors will understand.

So that’ll be fair drinkum then for an Aussie/Kiwi and one Jock Top Deck crew from 1985 and 1986 reunion then.

The trick is to keep your arm fully extended and horizontal.

Munchen date: Getting ready for the Beerfest

While dropping the arm or spilling any of the beer results in immediate disqualification

And we’re with you in thinking that the hardest thing is keeping your Sam Adams (the sponsors and our favourite Boston tipple) at arm’s length without drinking it.

Tweet music

Don’t chicken out: Join the Chicken Dance

Now you won’t need to imbibe to take part in the world’s biggest chicken dance but we reckon it helps.

Komm wieder (that’ll be come again in Teuton).

Well, some 72,000 took part in the dance to the Tweets’ Birdie Song.

Oktoberfest Zinzinnati returns to Cincinnati’s riverfront from September 17-20.

You can fly from London to Cincinnati from £778.69 with British Airways on September 16, returning September 20.

Now get into training and…

EIN PROSIT, EIN PROSIT, DER GEMUTLICHKEIT

America, Countries, Europe, Food & Wine, UK

Irish bar flagging up Ivorian green, white and gold

17th June 202617th June 2026 funtime65

And as Scotland basks in World Cup glory let’s include our Celtic cousins too and the Irish bar flagging up Ivorian Green, white and gold.

Now we’ve been here ourselves, and too often, with the world champions in waiting (that’s us) outside looking in for 28 years.

And in that decade and a half trying to immerse ourselves in the tourney through clever tie-ins.

Like adopting whichever team is playing England with some smart word play in the marketing merch.

Although worryingly one in ten Scots want England to do well, including Royalist Roy next door.

The Green, White and Verde

It is the birthright, of course, of all Celts that you get to support Ireland or Wales too if your own country miss out.

And in Ireland’s case anybody with any tangental connection.

Such as Cape Verde’s Roberto “Pico” Lopes, a Shamrock Rovers defender the Africans tapped up on LinkedIn.

After discovering he qualified through his father.

Now Ireland and the diaspora have lent their support to Cape Verde.

With the Honey Fitz bar in Astoria, New York adopting the archipelago as their team for the tourney.

And we dare say that the old family bar, the iconic Irish Cottage, in Queens too would have done the same was it still here now.

Men in the mirror

For us living in the country of the world champion heir apparents there is another Irish link, for when Scotland aren’t playing.

In the shape of Cote D’Ivoire, or the Ivory Coast, because their flag is the mirror image of Ireland’s.

Ireland’s green, white and orange represented green Irish catholicism, orange Northern protestantism and white for peace.

And the Cote D’Ivoire’s green for its grasslands, orange for its forests and white, er, for peace again.

Edinburgh and Ivory

Your best Biddy: Channeling the Ivorians

Biddy Mulligan’s in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket has gone full Ivorian.

With all Irish flags, which feature the same tricolour as the Ivory Coast in a different order, will be flipped to represent the African nation.

While Ivory Coast tunes will be played before and after matches.

And Biddy’s has also partnered with an Ivory Coast snacks company to bring food to customers ‘straight from the source’.

And have even bought in hundreds of bottle of African Guinness. with the stout selling more in Africa than any other continent.

Countries, Food & Wine

The Connecticut Father of Cocktails on World Cocktail Day

13th May 202613th May 2026 funtime65

And because it had to start somewhere let’s raise a glass to the Connecticut Father of Cocktails on World Cocktail Day.

Because it was today 220 years ago that the name of the drink was coined.

When clergyman, editor and Yale alumnus Harry Crosswell, of the New York tabloid The Balance and Colombian Repository, defined it.

Ginger up your day

As ‘a stimulating liquor, composed of spirits of any kind, sugar, water and bitters.’

As in a cock’s tail standing up meaning a stimulant.

Possibly in reference too to gingering an old horse with a ginger suppository so it would ‘cock its tail up and be frisky’.

All in response to a reader’s request so it’s always best to ask.

All Greek to us

What the Greek for all of that is we’d have to check back into our bank of Classical Greek from school.

With Socrates, Aristotle, Plato and their pals known to imbibe kykeon, an Ancient Greek custom.

Surrounding the Eleusinian Mysteries initiation ceremony held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone.

You’ll find evidence in the Museum of the Royal Tombs of Aigai in Greece.

And they were also used in the court of Philip II of Macedon to prepare and serve mixtures of wine, water, honey.

Answer to our prayers

Now because we have a swathe of cocktails on the market.

And because as fast as I roadtest cocktails new ones get made up.

We’ll hark back to the days of gingering with a sample ginger cocktail, honouring the old clergyman.

And yes we know Harry was an episcopalian but the name of this one was too good to ignore.

With thanks to Liberandcompany here’s the Backsliding Presbyterian.

Over to you bartender

Drink from the gods: Backsliding Presbyterian

The highball features a mix of ginger, bourbon, and a hint of Campari.

Ingredients:

¾ oz Fiery Ginger Syrup
2 oz bourbon whiskey
½ oz Campari
1 oz lime juice
club soda

Instructions:

Shake all but club soda with ice for five seconds
Strain into a highball glass filled with ice
Top with soda and garnish

So, we’ve gingered up your day and now that it’s getting on to Cocktail Hour we’ll leave you to do the rest.

Countries, Europe, Food & Wine

Hungary and thirsty for a Magyar wine bus tour

12th May 202612th May 2026 funtime65

And as its English name lends itself to fun for punsters we’ve been served with Hungary and thirsty for a Magyar wine bus tour.

The Magyars have launched their first hop-on hop-off wine bus, on the shores of Lake Balaton in the north of the country.

With 22 wineries, two curated routes, award-winning wines and breathtaking Balaton views.

The 46° Balaton zeroes in on the Balatonfüred–Csopak wine region, which lies close to the 46th parallel north.

Which is the same prestigious European wine belt as iconic wine regions such as Bordeaux, Burgundy, and the Rhône Valley.

Balatonfüred and Tihany have become two of the Mayars‘ most popular summer destinations, attracting millions of visitors each year.

Ferry traffic between Szántód and Tihany recently hit record numbers.

While Balatonfüred alone records more than 1.4 million guest nights annually.

Wine O’Clock

We have oenophile Virág Szabó to thank for the tour.

Virág has spent years of summers in Balatonfüred, yet repeatedly found herself visiting the same wineries.

Because many of the region’s hidden gems are difficult to access without a car.

While even short taxi rides from the vineyards can become surprisingly expensive.

“I saw a similar concept on the other side of the world, and immediately thought: why don’t we have this in Hungary?’ she shared.

The idea felt so simple, yet it solves such an obvious problem,” recalls Virág Szabó.

The Magyar Bus

Red, red wine: And drinking with ‘Red’ Aileen

The service operates four days a week — from Wednesday to Saturday — between mid-May and the end of September.

With a special route also planned for Pentecost Sunday.

Buses depart each morning from Vitorlás Square in central Balatonfüred and return there around sunset.

The “Old Friends” route runs on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Taking guests to some of the region’s best-known wineries across Balatonfüred, Aszófő, Pécsely, Balatonszőlős, Csopak, and Paloznak.

With buses circulating every 90 minutes.

Hidden Treasures

The ‘Hidden Treasures’ route operates on Fridays and Saturdays.

Offering a nearly 60-kilometre discovery journey through the rolling hills of the Balaton Highlands.

This route focuses on family-run wineries in villages such as Pécsely, Mencshely, Óbudavár, Szentantalfa, Tagyon, and Balatonakali.

With buses initially running every 120 minutes.

At the heart of the experience is the bus itself: a unique 1984 retro convertible DAF bus.

It features a covered front section and a fully open-air rear deck.

Just the ticket

For visitors staying in Tihany, a dedicated return shuttle service will also be available.

The transfer route includes five stops — including the Tihany ferry terminal.

Including transporting passengers from Tihany to Balatonfüred in the morning and back again in the evening.

Making the experience easily accessible both for southern shore visitors and guests staying in Tihany.

The 46° Balaton Wine Bus is designed as a full-day experience and is family-friendly, making it suitable for visitors with children as well.

Tickets became available from 8 May via the official website at 46balaton.hu.

Due to limited capacity, advance booking is recommended.

Countries, Food & Wine, UK

Keep walking to Edinburgh’s Johnnie Walker Experience

6th May 20266th May 2026 funtime65

Now I’ve had my share of distillery tours and that has taken me to keep walking to Edinburgh’s Johnnie Walker Experience.

The JWE for those who know the Scottish capital and Princes Street, and even those who don’t, occupies the old House of Fraser store.

Where whisky fans are kept walking and drinking through more than 200 years of Scotland’s most popular dram.

Now we’ll not try to bottle the history of whisky into this post.

And better visit the Scotch Whisky Experrience next to Edinburgh Castle on the Royal Mile for that.

Nor will we bring into the distillery and face to face with pot stills.

You can visit the any of the hundreds of whisky manufactures, big and small, across Scotland.

Bells and whistles

Instead take in the Johnnie Walker Experience in the hands of actress Rachel and guide Grace.

For the best bells and whistles interactive tour of the life and reach of the grocer from Kilmarnock in the west of Scotland.

Everyone’s whisky takeaway, of course, will be different but ours was an explanation of the distinctive square bottles.

To increase the amount of bottles that could be transported on ships from Britain to North America.

Of course, it’s what is in those bottles that is always more interesting.

And which makes listening to the science bit in any ways palatable.

Band of gold

To get you started JWE ask you to take a quiz in reception.

To find out what flavours suit you for your cocktails.

You get three and depending on the colour of your band it should reflect your tastes.

Although guess what, there is no whisky police to say what you can and can’t put in your whisky.

And this traditionalist was happy to try.

A pineapple-infused highball alongside a smoky bay leaf flavoured smoky whisky and spicy old-fashioned.

Tour de force

Now at the end of your 90-minute tour you will arrive, unsurprisingly, at the merch shop.

Where you can also buy the uisge beatha and at a 10% discount although at a ceiling of £400.

Which means you won’t be able to get a cut on the £15,000 bottle of 1978 Isle of Arran whisky.

Although you’ll be disappointed anyway as I’ve raided the Scary One’s House Refurb Fund.

KEEP WALKING

America, Countries, Food & Wine, UK

Trump rolling out Kentucky barrels for Scotch whisky

1st May 20261st May 2026 funtime65

And because we (and King Charles) have his ear Donald Trump is rolling out Kentucky barrels for Scotch whisky.

The US President is the toast of his late beloved mother Mary’s Scots homeland today after lifting prohibitive tariffs on uisce beatha.

Because he told us of ‘Scotland’s ability to work with the Commonwealth of Kentucky on Whiskey and Bourbon.

‘In that there had been great Inter-Country Trade, especially having to do with the Wooden Barrels used.’

A toast to Trump

This year’s blond: ‘The Donald’ in New York

All very timely too as Favourite Cousin, New York Kath and Kentucky Cousin-in-law Mark fly in to see us in North Berwickety.

And we will be breaking out the Woodford Reserve he first introduced me too, and in front of tomorrow’s Kentucky Derby too.

The truth is that almost everyone who has enjoyed a drap of Scotch will also be drinking in the best of Kentucky too.

Because ex-bourbon barrels are used to mature over 90% of all scotch whisky today.

We have, of course, the half-Scottish 45th and 47th President to thank for cutting the cost of our national drink.

A New Deal

But it his predecessor, the 32nd President, Franklin D. Roosevelt who made it all possible.

When he stipulated as part of his New Deal that all bourbon whiskey barrels must br single-use barrels.

Which created a supply of barrels for Scots to pounce on to store their liquid gold.

And so Kentucky barrels became the standard containers for Scotch ever since.

Gracias amigos

Best family bar none: Johnnie Fox’s in Dublin mountains

Enhanced further by Spain’s decision in the Eighties that all sherry must be bottled on home soil, taking their casks off the market.

The rest as they say is history and science.

And for that bit we’ll turn to the whisky attraction experts this week.

The distilleries, the Scotch Whisky Experience on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile and the Johnnie Walker Experience, on the capital’s Princes Street.

And now that The Donald is channeling his Scots half we humbly implore that he looks again at the ban on Scottish sheep lungs.

An integral part of our national dish haggis.

Because we know he takes calls from journalists… and reads Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel.com.

SLÁINTE AND MEET YOU IN THE BAR

Countries, Culture, Deals, Europe, Food & Wine, Music

Efharisto Rhodes you are Colossal

21st April 202621st April 2026 funtime65

Efharisto Rhodes you are colossal and as we say Yassas at the end of our loveholidays odyssey we reflect on the legends we have met.

Michael, the pick-up driver who took us on our first night to the Amphitryon Hotel.

May you make enough from your driving and your day building job to realise your ambition to settle down and slow down in your 40s.

Manolis, our bar manager who patiently and smilingly put up with this Bandanaman mangling his language.

To you and those who fed us so fully a Yamas (or cheers).

Over an ouzo with the best Greek traditional band Bouzouki playing in the background.

Yamas to new friends

To the new friends we met, the Three Yorkshiremen and Jay, Cherry and Jane.

And thanks for the offer of your room on the day of your check-out Jane.

Only I am still haunted by another invitation from my Athens odyssey.

And Toy Boy Brian, OK, he’s a fellow Sixtysomething like myself but travels the world selling vintage toys.

And meets celebs and gets the VIP treatment, hence him meeting the Bandanaman.

Then, of course, the army of cats who responded to our cheery kalimera.

Even when noon had passed and it should be a kalispera.

Especially Symi2, our forever friend who took residence of our laps.

And whose picture will now occupy a place on our crowded fridge.

Legends carved in rock

It is back now to chilly North Berwickety in Scotland where Rufus Rules now has a lot of living up to and explaining.

But not before a nod to the legends who come out at night.

Now Rhodes is clearly not shy of gods carved into rock.

But Nicklas and Despina are the god and goddess of rock at the Legends Rock Bar in Old Rhodes town.

Downing shots as they serve and producing a bottle of Bunnahabhain smoky Islay whisky and testing me on my Scottishness.

By asking me to pronounce it which incidentally is Bunahaveain.

And all the time Nikos the singer, of course, belts out the standards from across the rocky lane.

Reading the words perfectly from his screen which is no mean feat when it’s Cher’s warbling.

Kalinihta and dreams of gold

I leave with a kalinihta and breathe a sigh of relief that I have not said anything inappropriate.

As happened when I greeted the concierge in Rome with a buona notte e sogni d’oro.

But come to think of it, good night and dreams of gold does sound a fitting farewell to Helios, the Sun God’s island, Rhodes.

Your friendly neighbourhood Bandanaman is travelling with loveholidays and EasyJet from Edinburgh.

And staying at the Amphitryon City Hotel, 800m from the Old Town.

All for £1,028 for two, B&B and evening meals, for a week with airport transfers.

Countries, Food & Wine, UK

Made in Scotland from girders for 125 years

25th March 202625th March 2026 funtime65

It’s our other national drink Irn-Bru and it’s been made in Scotland from girders for 125 years.

The bronze-coloured soft drink is so much part of Scots’ blood that brewers Barr have come up with a novel idea.

With a drop-inn parlour where you can have your love of ‘ra Bru‘ inked into your arm or wherever you want to mark it.

The story goes that Barr, then a makers of corks, tinkered with the idea of a tincture.

After seeing Irish immigrant steel workers sweating it out and refuelling with beer.

On the rebuilding of Glasgow’s Central Station.

Which, of course, is the focus of more refurbishment after the destruction of Union Corner by a fire this month.

The Irn Age

Spell it out: Part of the Scottish landscape

Glaswegians of a certain age will, of course, recall that the Victorian B-listed building opposite the train station was adorned for years.

With signage of an Indian boy in a turban advertising Irn-Bru.

The Bru has prided itself on its promotions over these 125, second only to Coca-Cola, but first and ahead of them in sales in Scotland.

Traditionalists will fondly remember, for instance, the athlete on the bottles and then cans.

That being 19th-century Highland Games athlete of note Adam Brown.

But the Bru has moved with the times and we’ve travelled with them.

And it is barely remembered now that the strange misspelling has only been around since after the Second World War.

Prior to which it was Iron.

Barr had become worried over changing food labelling regulations after the war.

With the mysterious orange elixir containing only the minutest traces of iron and not being brewed.

Raising the Barr

For all of us who jealously protect our favourite brands (think Tayto in Ireland) we have our own in jokes which we can share.

Anywhere we meet fellow Scots and flush out the authentic ones.

By asking the likes of ‘I’m Thirsty, I’m very thirsty too… so here’s a drink that’s made for you, Barr’s Irn-Bru.

Of course, each generation has its own favourite ad, the young boy who lifts a girder after drinking the Bru.

A skit on The Snowman movie and the recent Fanny gag.

And it works too in American English as well as Scots English.

By gum

Now where once you would struggle to get the Bru beyond the northern bit of this British island it is widely available now.

With our other national drink even sponsoring that most northern English of sports rugby league… and you’re welcome.

Whether though, you’re prepared to mark yourself with an Irn-Bru tattoo really depends on how much it’s in your blood.

And pretty much every Scot does have it in under their skin.

But it is worth a try although maybe not say it tastes like bubblegum.

Unless you want to invite some kind of unpronouncable slur spat back at you.