Blowing hot and cold with cocktails

The British wine world lost one of its greats last week, Matthew Jukes, at only 58. I was always a little in awe of Matthew. Rather than gossip, he’d have his head down tasting and tasting. He had an unerring ability to size up and rate a wine in seconds, something that takes me minutes or even hours and at the end I’m still not sure. I remember at one event he took one sip of a sherry, a Manzanilla Pastrana from Hidalgo, and said: “that’s a 17.5 point wine” and then he was off, onto the next one. It wasn’t bluster, he knew his abilities and trusted his own judgement. He was one of the big personalities but he also always seemed like a thoroughly nice chap as well.

Joe Fattorini has posted an interview he did with Jukes in 2003 for the Glasgow Herald. It makes for somewhat melancholy reading today. Who would put two wine writers on the cover of a magazine today? In fact, I doubt the Herald even has a colour supplement any more. It was the tail end of a tremendously exciting moment in wine in Britain. It still had the ‘80s and ‘90s glow of Oddbins, Jancis, Jilly and Oz. Wine was the new food and wine writers might become celebrities like chefs. Different times.

Why don’t I drink more cocktails?

I have an admission to make. I’m a cocktail fraud. I have written two books on the subject, The Home Bar and The Cocktail Dictionary, and wrote a long-running column for Master of Malt on cocktails but I am ambivalent about the things. In my basement I have a drinks cabinet that would make F. Scott Fitzgerald weak at the knees but most evenings, I’ll just uncork a bottle of wine. Why don’t I drink more cocktails?