<<Read: Whiskey Galore I

I got the expected heavy response to my note yesterday about Whiskey Galore from widely-located readers in places like Panama and Britain.  Canadian Maurice F reproached me for being insufficiently wise on whiskyish matters, writing:

“You will find that whiskey from the US and Ireland has an “e” in it but from everywhere else doesn’t

I can tell you are not a serious whisky or whiskey drinker otherwise you would have known.

“According to Wikipedia, India is the third largest whiskey market. You will never guess the top 2. I didn’t. Hint: other BRIC countries.

“India is a huge producer and market for whiskey (the Indians probably import Jack Daniels and Jamiesons – so whiskey is probably penetrating their market) and goes without the “e”. I have also had a French variety appropriately named Bastille, actually quite good. You should start having the odd tipple more often.”

In my defense, yes I know that the Whisky Galore movie was set in Scotland and that British and Canadians spell the word differently than my spell-checker. I mentioned the UK spelling so Maurice and other non-US readers can find the right site on the internet, based on the British spelling.

Revelation that Volkswagen (VLKAF) also gamed the exhaust systems of diesel vehicles sold outside the US took down the share price another 18% in European trading. What were they thinking? VW is controlled via preferred shares, half owned by the Porsche family, and the rest held by the German Federal State of Lower Saxony, institutions, and Qatar. Its supervisory board, which is supposed to advise management, is headed by a trade unionist. This is supposed to be a family enterprise with strong inputs from local government and employees. Yet the shares are collapsing after the CEO, an engineer, admitted that the largest car-maker in Europe had cheated and polluted in violation of environmental regulations on both sides of the Atlantic.