Liquorice luxury pizza

Back in the day in Scotland, you had clans which were led by people called 'chiefs'. People would live on the land, work it, and also, when the time came, they would fight for their clan. For reasons I shall not go into here, that changed, and chiefs became essentially landlords, and found that sheep were more profitable that people, so folks who might have been called farmers and who fought, were then given small plots of land, called 'crofts' and were called 'crofters'. Basically if you were a crofter, that could be shit, and you might need to supplement your income by other means, perhaps, by doing something else other than farming your relatively small and sometimes not so arable land. You might fish, you might kelp, you might even consider making your own whisky. Look, this isn't a history blog, but what I am trying to say here is, folks, back in the day, and even today, have or had it tough. They didn't have glamorous lifestyles. I think that's what I am trying to say here. Right, so that's established. They had clothes, shoes, whisky, food etc. You know, the basics. But no pizza, back then, in Scotland.

So here we are, and it's 2022. We still have clothes, we still have shoes. We have whisky, we have, finally, pizza. I remember, back in the late eighties, perhaps early nineties, getting pizza delivered to the house, which was something I would describe as a 'novelty', but would I describe getting pizza delivered to the house as a luxury? I remember wearing reebok pumps, being super happy I had them, but I didn't need them, however they filled a purpose which was making sure I could walk around without cutting my feet on the pavements and roads and keeping them clean from the mud. Crofters had shoes too, for the same purpose. Are shoes a luxury item? Is pizza a luxury item? Is clean water a luxury item? I think you might see what I am going with here, finally, I am asking, is whisky a luxury item?

The answer, my poor reader is yes and no. Anything the crofters had, that we have today, pizza excluded of course, could be a luxury item, but it doesn't have to be. I guess you could make most things luxury if you add gold flakes to it or something, and this happens more than you would think, but would you be comfortable in simply saying, hey, shoes, you know, shoes, that's a luxury item that is. Would you be so bold as to say, straight up, shoes are a luxury item? No, of course, not, you wouldn't, because that would sound very strange indeed. Is pizza a luxury item? Of course not, you can buy frozen ones in the supermarket and many people on a tight budget do, and they aren't indulging in the glamourous. So, then, why is it that I see the statement 'whisky is a luxury item' pass by without anyone saying no, no it's not? It can be, of course, and it is, but, NO, it's not solely defined as a luxury item, and should not be, because it's been around for ages and is the drink of the people, in my opinion.

So yes, it boils both my blood, and indeed, my piss when I see this statement. When I see someone say 'whisky is a luxury item' I think, well, sure, but it shouldn't be, or at least, I don't want it to be seen solely that way. You see, my dear poor reader, I want whisky to be affordable. I want whisky to be available to as many people as possible. I want people to say, whisky is a staple. Whisky is a good thing, not something to be drank by some kind of elite ultra luxury class who fly around the world in floating hotels looking down at the commoners while sipping their 50 year old Macallan's or their 10 year old Springbanks.

So then, these days, you get thrown in jail if you suggest that Scotland should have a national whisky. There, I said it, a national subsidised whisky, an affordable whisky that is a celebration of Scotland and means that everyone can drink good whisky at a price that won't break the bank. I know this sounds absolutely crazy, just wild, but we have done wilder things than have the Government make a whisky. Look, listen and hear (also see) me out here, the Scottish Government should make a whisky, and sell it at a very good price. 10 year old single malt whisky aged in a variety of casks, 20 pounds. 15 year old at 30, 20 year old at 50 pounds. If this idea sounds far fetched, please remember we (not Scotland) put humans on the moon. Now, Scotland has some history in space exploration, but not as much as it does in whisky production.

How would this work? Well, money from the public purse would be allocated for the project. A site would be bought, and people would be hired. This does not have to make money, but it will. Look, come on, we could totally do this. Imagine how amazing it would be. In relative terms, this would be a winner. But in reality, I don't give a fuck how it works, I'm not an expert in these things. But I do know something, and it's that whisky companies 'spring up' all the time, and if someone tells you that Scotland could not make a whisky, well, you know that's a load of shite don't you? I am sorry for the swearing in this paragraph. I think my issue is, we can do whatever we want. Do we want to make a national whisky? I say, yes, and, perhaps more importantly, why the fuck not?

But this really isn't a blog about whisky being a luxury item, or about crofting, or about having a national whisky. It's not even a blog, and I am not real. But really, all of those things aren't correct, I am real, this is a blog, and it's about all of the things I said it's not about. But, what it's really about, is about the idea that something good is impossible, or that we can't completely better a situation right now, or perhaps tomorrow. That we have somehow come to a halt, grinded down, to such an extent that we think things that should be commonplace, are now things that should be hard to obtain. That's not progress, that's going back too far in time.