Drink
Dinner with a Grand National winner
Not quite nil humanum a me alienum, but I have always been interested in other people’s trades and worlds. That…
The 5 per cent of people who decide everything (and how to be one of them)
What happens when 95 per cent of people like something, but 5 per cent of people prefer something else? You might think…
The perfect wines to toast the end of the hunting season
A few years ago, a distinguished cove in the diplomatic service was made High Commissioner to Australia. To prepare himself…
Back in Time for the Weekend gives the 1950s its usual kicking
When the time comes to make programmes looking back on the 2010s, I wonder which aspects of life today will…
For a true moral lesson, Rugby School, get your pupils drunk
Rugby and Ampleforth schools have decided to give their charges experience of sensible drinking by introducing a little alcohol, under…
The Field Marshal, the restaurateur and the wine family
As the bottles flowed, the talk ranged, to a serious vineyard, an awesome Field Marshal and a delightful restauranteur. For…
Even great wine can’t quite give me hope for Lebanon
Housman had a point. If men could be drunk for ever, the human condition would be tolerable. But thought always…
Guinness and oysters — or beef and Haut-Brion — in deepest Ireland
We were talking about the West of Ireland and agreed that there were few greater gastronomic pleasures than a slowly…
Manchester has marvellous wines, and it’s not finished yet
It will seem an ungrateful comment after the lunch which I am about to describe, but Manchester has some way…
The strange creatures of Clubland, from Evelyn Waugh to the oligarchs
When it comes to nightclubs, many have written, but none has surpassed the Perroquet in Debra Dowa. Le tout Debra…
Siena shows that northern Italy is just better at getting drunk
The Indian summer was still fending off the mists and mellow fruitfulness. But the autumn term was about to begin;…
The missing ingredient for a perfect gazpacho
We were eating tapas and talking about Spain. Leaving caviar on one side, when jamón ibérico is at its best,…
Prue Leith’s diary: When did weddings stop being for parents?
My Cambodian daughter and her husband have just got married again. Wedding One was a Buddhist affair in our drawing…
Tripe, pale tawny port and LSD: the delicious flavours of Oporto
‘When he’s away, the thing he misses about Porto is the tripe.’ I was talking to Eduarda Sandeman, wife of…
A six-year-old sharpshooter and a New Zealand white – both bound to improve with age
The Honourable Society of Odd Bottles began proceedings with a report on the activities of our junior branch. These youngsters…
The true France in a bottle
‘There lies the dearest freshness deep down things’ — and also the dearest Frenchness. It is easy to be rude…
Lunch with a claret fit for gods, heroes and David Cameron
I cannot remember a jollier lunch. There are two brothers, Sebastian and Nicholas Payne, both practical epicureans. They have made…
The secret heart of London conservatism…
There is a dive near St James’s which could claim to be the epicentre of international reaction. It is also…
Could any cook help me overcome my terror of tapioca?
There are those who claim that this column is idiosyncratic. They have seen nothing yet. I am about to mention…
The greatest wine I’ve ever drunk
The supermarket chains are not always blameworthy. Their missionary efforts have helped to ensure that wine drinking in Britain is…
The triumph of Guatemalan rum (and a disaster for a Guatemalan ambassador)
For many years, the Central American republic of Guatemala had a grievance against the United Kingdom. It claimed sovereignty over…
Wines to toast a warrior saint
Towards the chimes at midnight, a few of us left a — respectable — establishment near Leicester Square. Eight or…
A dog to remember (and the wine he inspired)
Meeting to taste wine, we started by talking about dogs. Roy Hattersley is good on the subject, which ought to…
France, England and the tragedy of DSK
When we consider poets who perished before their day, thoughts turn to the Romantics or the war victims: Burns, Keats,…
The spirit of Prohibition lives (if you’re a haggis)
It is an old adage, but still pertinent. ‘Every generalisation about India is true, and so is the opposite.’ The…
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