The Beverage Report: The whisky convert

I've never been a whisky fan. Why discuss the merits of different malts when you could be slamming tequilas? Even the rock-chic of Jack Daniels, often pictured in the grip of Zoë Ball or Sara Cox in the years before ladettes fell out of favour, was ruined for me by the fact that it was my grandmother's tipple.

A recent hard night on the bourbon reintroduced me to the spirit, and I'm proud to say that I made the leap from the sickly sweet American stuff to a Scottish single malt, Laphroaig, with ease, and within the rarefied environs of St Pancras Grand, at the London railway station of the same name. I highly recommend the combination: the restaurant is a throwback to when train travel was an elegant affair, and the Laphroaig was as clean as a guard's whistle.