Bottle Of The Week (2)

With Father’s Day just around the corner, an American import inspired indirectly by that country’s largest mining disaster, thoughts turn to a suitable gift for the paterfamilias. If he is a whisky drinker, you have just missed the opportunity to make a big splash.

Edinburgh-based auctioneers, Lyon & Turnbull, have just sold an 86-gallon bottle of 32-year-old Macallan single malt in an on-line auction for $1.4 million. The six-foot tall bottle, twice the width of an average man, holds the equivalent of 444 standard bottles, known as “The Intrepid”, has been certified by Guinness World Records as the largest whisky bottle in the world.

The biggest it may be, but it is not the most expensive bottle of whisky. That honour goes to a bottle distilled at Macallan in 1926 which fetched $1.9 million in 2019.

After splashing that amount on a whisky, perhaps he should add some Birkentree Birch Water, a new mixer designed to provide a smooth and refined texture to a single malt. For more details, follow the link below:

Landing Page

How the anonymous foreign buyer is going to pour a dram from his bottle is anyone’s guess. Still, if he spills a drop or two, there is more from where it came.

Potato Of The Week (2)

In this blog I like to stamp on fake news and to consider the odd existentialist question. Rarely can I kill two birds with one stone, but here goes.

When is a potato not a potato is the sort of question that used to amuse students in late night bars in my day, but it seems that what Colin and Donne Craig-Brown dug up in their small farm in Ngahinapouri in the Waikato region of New Zealand was not a spud. Widely reported as the world’s largest potato, weighing in at 7.9 kilograms, it has been subjected to scientific analysis by the custodians of the Guinness World Records. It seems they have had their chips.

Despite the lump looking and tasting like a potato, DNA analysis has indicated that it really is a tuber of a gourd. On that basis the Craig-Brown’s claim to have smashed the record has been turned down, allowing Peter Glazebrook, a gardener from Hallam in Nottinghamshire to breathe a sigh of relief. His spud, which weighed 4.99 kilograms when it was unearthed in 2011, retains its crown.

The obvious question, of course, is what is the world’s heaviest gourd tuber and how Dug, the name given to the Kiwi potato, measures up against it. Answers on a postcard.

Bloodied but unbowed, the Craig-Browns are determined to pursue their quest to beat Glazebrook’s record. Gourd luck to them!

Strawberry Of The Week

Congratulations go to Israeli farmer, Chahi Ariel, who has just been confirmed as the producer of the world’s heaviest strawberry by Guinness World Records. Tipping the scales at a whopping 289kg, beating the previous record set by a strawberry grown in Fukuoka in Japan of 250kg by some distance.

The strawberry is from the Ilan variety, known for producing hefty fruit, and was picked in February 2021. It has since been stored in a freezer, waiting for the record to be verified. During the wait, it has become a shadow of its former glory and looks pretty unedifying.

Still, a record is a record!

Potato Of The Week

In 2011 Peter Glazebrook, a gardener from Hallam, near Newark in Nottinghamshire, grew a potato that tipped the scales at a whopping 4.99 kilograms, or just under eleven pounds in old money, making it the world’s heaviest and a place in Guinness World Records. However, his claim to fame is under serious threat from a whopper from New Zealand.

Colin and Donna Craig-Brown from Ngahinapouri in the Waikato region of the country discovered an enormous tuber growing in their garden, when they were preparing it for spring planting. Dubbed Doug, the spud tipped the scales at a gargantuan 7.9 kilograms or 17.4 pounds. They are awaiting official verification from the folk at Guinness World Records that it is the world’s heaviest.

They had better act quickly as, stored in a freezer, it has already lost a kilo. If it doesn’t get the record, at least it will keep them in chips for a few weeks.

Hooter Of The Week

His fame may go before him, but it was still a red-letter day for 71-year-old Mehmet Ozyurek from Turkey when Guinness World Records confirmed that he possessed the longest nose in the world. No word of a lie, it measures and impressive 8.8 centimetres or 3.5 inches in old money.  

As noses grow with age, there is every chance that he will break his own record, but he has a long way to go until he noses ahead of Thomas Wedder. This Yorkshireman, who lived in the 18^th century, had a snout that measured 7.5 inches or 19 centimetres. In my book, he wins by more than a nose.