For that matter, are all spirit marketers off their rockers? Brandy boosters take aged spirit and add ginger ale and call it an urban cocktail. I call it an abomination and Scotch marketers are following them down the slippery slopes of fashionable insanity. Take the front page of today’s Business Day as an example.

Four days out from the Winter equinox and they’re promoting this most delicate of spirits in a tumbler full of ice. Ice will depress the flavours, numb the tongue and set the teeth on edge. If it was an Islay brute – if you must – then sure add ice or Novocaine to suppress that vile taste of peat. But for this most feminine of drams? Come on lads, have you all gone completely daft?