THE WAKKER WEEKLY

Issue #1707 – Posted on: 16-Oct-2023

BREWERY “HOPP”ENINGS! Bushwakker head brewer, Michael Gaetz, reports that our seasonally available BARON BOCK, RASPBERRY BLONDE ALE, GRANNY’S BITTER, KAI’S MUNICH HELLES, and HONEY THISTLE WIT are currently available. Also there are batches of PREMIUM PALE ALE, SASKADIAN BLACK IPA and FLEK’S CZECH DARK LAGER currently working their way through the brewery.

 

This Saturday, October 14th TICKETS GO ON SALE TO THE 33^RD BUSHWAKKER SINGLE MALT SCOTCH TASTING! We had a lineup around the corner the day the tickets went on sale last year and they disappeared really quick! Don’t miss your chance to get tickets to the most powerful and rare Single Malt Scotch Tasting event in our 32 year history! All single malts are cask strength and all are one time or commemorative releases. Only 150 tickets will be made available and will go on sale Saturday, October 14th at 11:00 AM sharp. The scotch tasting will take place on Saturday, November 18th. Entertainment included performances from The Regina Police Services Pipes & Drums and The Regina Highland Dance Association. Plenty of door prizes to be given away too. Don’t miss our most “flavourful” scotch tasting event of all time!

 

This Weekend’s Special Dining Feature for October 13^th & 14^th is STEAK AU POIVRE for $27.95. Our Saturday CLASSIC STEAK & A PINT SPECIAL as well as our Monday and Wednesday WINGS & A PINT SPECIAL and Tuesday PIZZA & A PINT SPECIAL are also great value deals.

Our GUEST TAP is currently pouring the DAY DREAMER JUNIPER SAISON from Regina’s Malty National Brewing. Next up is the LET’S GOSE TO THE PEACH from Saskatoon’s High Key Brewing.

OCTOBER PREMIUM WINE FEATURES: This month’s red wine feature is the RELAX PINOT NOIR from Germany (as part of our Oktoberfest celebrations) and the white wine feature is the RELAX PINOT GRIGIO from Italy. What a twist! Both are $8.95 for a glass and $23.95 for a half litre.

 

The Bushwakker LOCAL ARTIST WALL for the month of October features the works of TINA WATERS and LINDA ORBAN. Their artist biographies are as follows:

Hi, I’m Linda Orban, a self-taught painter. My passion is to paint every day.  My love for painting takes me on a creative journey working with different mediums. Some of my paintings have been trees, amidst the boreal forest, in the north, to a variety of subjects, along with animals, pets, and people. I enjoy painting and it is an important part of my daily life.  Today, I present to you an abstract realism in my work. 

When I paint with the different mediums, I have focused on translucent and opaque colours. Google defines translucent, as allowing light, but not shapes to pass through. A focus is working with translucent paint and layering paints to help achieve a 3-dimensional work with abstract realism.

I find I paint intuitively in drawing the face, with the elongated nose.  A friend pointed out to me, there is a similarity with Picasso and his self-portraiture.  I was surprised to see that.  I believe, everyone is blessed with a wealth of knowledge, and we need to express it creatively to make our world a better place. 

Our home is Saskatchewan and we lived previously in Ontario, around Thunder Bay.  My husband and I have lived in Saskatchewan, for the last 11 years. He is originally from the Regina area.  Once our children graduated, they moved out west, so naturally when we retired, we followed them. Teaching had been my profession.

Tina Waters was raised in central Saskatchewan on a small farm where she has long been influenced by the experiences that have come with the farm life. It could be the flat plains of wheat that grew throughout the summertime or the vast cattle that grew up around her. She is no stranger to art, having drawn things since she could hold a pencil. When Tina was 18, she was taught how to use oil paintings by an experienced painter in which she found joy in creating art. While Tina has had influence and inspiration from watching other artists do their work, her work is very much her own.

Enjoy Linda and Tina’s works all this month!

 

Much thanks to CBC Saskatchewan for putting together a three part story on the Craft Brewing scene in our province. You can visit their YouTube page at  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvdbpUpDg1cA4f_Jfg_-_TQ  and have a look at what’s brewing across Saskatchewan!

 

Last week’s Oktoberfest Week Celebration was a huge success. By far and away the most popular dish was our massive Pork Schnitzel with spaetzel and braised apples and red cabbage. Can’t wait until next year!

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CURRENT HOURS OF OPERATION AND RESERVATIONS NOTES

We are open Monday – Thursday from 11:00 AM – 10:00 PM. The kitchen closes at 9:00 PM and last call is at 9:15 PM. Fridays and Saturdays we are open from 11:00 AM until midnight. The kitchen is open until 11:00 PM and last call is at 11:15 PM. Closed Sundays.

Reservations are accepted and encouraged. We accept a limited number of reservations as late as 6:00 PM every day except Fridays. Fridays we accept reservations as late as 3:00 PM. Call us at 306-359-7276 to secure your table. Our two banquet rooms are also available for private party rentals. Call Kelly at 306-359-7276 to book either our main floor Arizona Room or basement Clubroom.

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The Differences Between Single Malt & Blended Scotch Whisky

From Vinepair

Trying to navigate the world of Scotch can make you feel like you’re treading through centuries of history like some kind of uppity teenager walking into a haunted castle. But Scotch doesn’t have to be so intimidating. Beyond understanding your basic Scotch geography (basically knowing what kinds of flavor profiles come from the different Scotch-producing regions), there are just a few other questions to answer. Among them: single malt or blended?

Terminology in spirits can get complicated, especially within the whiskey category. For instance, whiskey is always spelled with an “e” unless it’s Scotch whisky, in which case that “e” is presumably left behind somewhere in the Scottish Highlands to think about what it’s done. And then of course there’s the fact that your Scotch might be labelled “Cask Aged,” “Sherry Finished,” or be part of some special series released by an independent bottler (who might buy a bulk of Scotch from the distiller at a non-traditional bottling age, let’s say, 17 years, and release it under a special name). Confusion is inevitable. But it’s worth it.

So, to clarify at least one aspect of Scotch: a blended whisky is actually a combination of a barrel-aged malt whisky (as in all barley) and some quantity of grain whisky (a whisky made with barley as well as other grains). The person who does the combining has a super important job—making sure a branded blended Scotch whisky tastes consistent from year to year—which is probably why he or she is called the Master Blender. Given the ability to produce consistent bottlings, and use slightly cheaper grain whisky as a filler, blended Scotch whisky is unsurprisingly the most common Scotch on the market.

On the other hand, single malt whisky is simply the product of one distillery. No, it’s not made from one particular barley harvest, or in one barrel, or by one old, wise Scottish guy. Single malt Scotch whisky is simply a “malt whisky” (again, as in “all barley”) that’s the product of a single distillery. Let’s say you get a bottle of Glenmorangie’s Single Malt 12-Year (Sherry cask finished, ahem). Let’s say you absolutely love it. That means any and all thank you letters should be sent to the Glenmorangie distillery. Same goes if you hate it—all hate mail should be sent to the Master Blender at Glenmorangie, who’s responsible for making it (though don’t really send mail, any kind of mail, at all). The same holds true for the less common single grain Scotch whisky, which is also the product of one distillery, just made with barley and other grains.

As for the all-important question, what’s the difference in taste? Actually, that depends on several other really important variables. For one, where the Scotch was made—as different Scotch-producing regions tend to produce different flavor profiles. There’s the question of how it was aged—both how long and in what (many Scotches are aged in used Bourbon barrels, but was it finished, or briefly aged, in any special wine or spirit casks?). And then there’s the question of how the brand is “supposed” to taste historically; the Master Blender will blend barrels to make sure a single malt or blended whisky tastes true to form.

Of course, since nothing can be too simple in Scotch, there are also blended malt Scotch whiskies, which blend single malts from multiple distilleries, and blended grain Scotch whiskies, which blend single grain whiskies from multiple distilleries. But again, the most common Scotch whisky on the market is your basic blended, which is whisky made from single malt and grain whisky sourced from different distilleries. Single malt, meanwhile, is often more prized, but not necessarily of higher quality. Single barrel whiskies (as in whisky made from one particular barrel) exist, with more inconsistencies due to the idiosyncrasies from barrel to barrel. Balvenie recently replaced their 15-Year single barrel American oak (bourbon cask) with a single barrel Sherry cask. But single barrel generally is more common in Bourbon, and usually far less expensive.

Confusing, yes. But at least we have one thing clear—we know that blended whiskies, however long they’re aged or finished, always combine single malt and grain whiskies. And we know that single malt whiskies are always the product of one distillery. And we know that we could probably use a tumbler of either one right about now…

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TIME OUT

Many years ago during my married days, I accidentally overturned my golf cart.

Elizabeth, a very attractive and keen golfer, who lived in a villa on the golf course, heard the noise and called out: “Are you okay? What’s your name?”

“It’s John, and I’m okay, thanks,” I replied as I pulled myself out of the twisted cart.

“John,” she said, (firm loose breasts undulating beneath her white silky robe) “forget your troubles. Come to my villa, rest a while and I’ll help you get the cart up later.”

“That’s mighty nice of you,” I answered, “but I don’t think my wife would like it.”

“Oh, come on now,” Elizabeth insisted.

She was so very pretty, very, very sexy and very persuasive … I was weak. “Well okay,” I finally agreed but thought to myself, “my wife won’t like it.”

After a couple of restorative single malt scotchess, I thanked Elizabeth. “I feel a lot better now, but I know my wife is going to be really upset. So I’d best go now.”

“Don’t be silly!” Elizabeth said with a smile, letting her robe fall open slightly. “She won’t know anything. By the way, where is she?”

“Still under the cart, I guess.”

 

Tickets to one of the most “flavourful” Bushwakker Single Malt Scotch Tasting events go on sale Saturday, October 14^th at 11:00 AM sharp. All six featured whiskies are one-time or commemorative cask strength releases. It will be challenging to top this one!