"Christmas bottles"...
 

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[Closed] "Christmas bottles" the annual humble brag thread.

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In the world of builder land corruption is still rife and the odd bottle will find it's way to my desk. A steady start Monday with the odd wine, things have improved as the week has gone on, bottle of white and red plus 10 litres of white emulsion from our painting contractor being the mid week highlight, topped off today with a single malt by the name of abelour, I know nothing about whiskey but it came in a nice tube! Will make a good pass it on present for someone. One week to go....


 
Posted : 14/12/2018 8:42 pm
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Wife's mum used to work for Diageo and has quite a stash hidden away. I usually get a decent bottle at Hogmanay, Mortlach 16 last year. Fingers crossed for a repeat!


 
Posted : 14/12/2018 8:52 pm
 Drac
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Nothing as of course I'd have to declare for tax purposes if I did, so for the record I've never come home with several bottles of wine.


 
Posted : 14/12/2018 9:13 pm
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Are "gifts" taxable? If so the taxman is a bigger bumhole than I previously thought!


 
Posted : 14/12/2018 9:20 pm
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topped off today with a single malt by the name of abelour, I know nothing about whiskey but it came in a nice tube!

Arberlour is whisky, not whiskey. There you go, you know a bit more now 🙂


 
Posted : 14/12/2018 9:30 pm
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Well perhaps my predictive text does....


 
Posted : 14/12/2018 9:48 pm
 Drac
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Tax is something like £250 worht of gifts over the year but of course I politely refuse such things


 
Posted : 14/12/2018 9:49 pm
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Aberlour 🙄


 
Posted : 14/12/2018 9:51 pm
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Haha 🙂


 
Posted : 14/12/2018 9:54 pm
 igm
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Just put a £65 box of chocolates in the charity raffle today.

No that wasn’t a typo.


 
Posted : 14/12/2018 11:24 pm
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I'm currently trying to work out what size of bottle is appropriate for clients. Especially if they have no particular appreciation of expensive/ good booze...


 
Posted : 14/12/2018 11:51 pm
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A thimble


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 1:24 am
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Having worked in charities for most of my years, this never happened to me.

However, a career change into making single malt should start paying off! Looks like I'll be making the first whisky for a new distillery. Should hopefully be getting some bottles after the mandatory 3 years!


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 6:08 am
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Mrs FD has been gifted half a cow before now at Christmas.


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 6:23 am
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If we're lucky we will get a box of quality street - between 5 of us.


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 7:29 am
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I've 2 bottles of this https://www.htfw.com/laphroaig-cairdeas-feis-ile-2008 I've already drank a bottle and it was really really nice, I love laphroaig but this is the nicest I've had of theirs and I tried a lot when I visited the distillery, I'm saving the other 2 for something special.


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 7:37 am
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Let me tell you a story....

In the good old days when I worked for a bank, I'd occasionally be involved in producing the annual "gifts received" report. This was when every branch had a manager and they really did have autonomy. Bottles of expensive alcohol were common. Then there would be clothing (Barbour jackets, Hunter wellies etc), dinner sets, crystal glasses and so on. The best I saw was a shotgun. I was trying to picture the scene in the branch when someone walked in carrying that 😅


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 7:49 am
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Working in the public sector we of course never receive gifts from contractors. There does seem to have been a lot of sweets and biscuits magically appear in our office recently though....

I got offered an amazing gift from a supplier this year but had to turn it down. Still gutted


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 9:19 am
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Not a Christmas thing, but has anyone else actually been offered coke and hookers?


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 9:46 am
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If we’re lucky we will get a box of quality street – between 5 of us.

Ooh fancy pants, in years gone by we've had to share a tub of Celebrations between 5 shifts at 10 to a shift.

I wish I was making that up.


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 9:50 am
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The last bottle I received was Buckfast (from a contractor with a sense of humour 🤣 I’d answered. ‘Nothing’ to what would you like question). My then 14yo niece nicked off with it 🏃🏻‍♀️

I work in the public sector, there used to be meets in the car park for this sort of thing...

I’ve not ‘established’ such close relationships since moving jobs (and since the credit crunch you’re extremely lucky if you receive a calendar or diary these days) so am not put in a position where I’d have to knock it back anyways.

From my days in private practice I’ve an unopened ‘round’ bottle of Highland Park... it’s all wasted on me...


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 10:05 am
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When I was in construction, we had to intervene as the 'plant' guys were getting cases of stuff, but no-one else was getting anything. We suspect loads still 'vanished', but we raffled everything off, so everyone had a chance of something.


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 10:50 am
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Oh, and if you didn't like your 'raffle' prize, you could swap it. I swapped a bottle of whiskey (hate the stuff) for a really top quality 'spade'.


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 10:56 am
 Drac
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If we’re lucky we will get a box of quality street – between 5 of us.

Seems reasonable to me.


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 11:54 am
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Arberlour is whisky, not whiskey. There you go, you know a bit more now 🙂

Both are acceptable spellings: the Scottish variant is a convention that is not universally applied.

There, you know a bit more now.


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 12:32 pm
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Both are acceptable spellings: the Scottish variant is a convention that is not universally applied.

There, you know a bit more now.

Except Scotch whisky is universally spelled as such.


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 12:43 pm
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Except Scotch whisky is universally spelled as such.

Which is irrelevant because the two spellings are synonymous.


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 1:37 pm
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I swapped 10 litres of emulsion for 3 bags of cement this week. Builder land corruption is for life not just Christmas.


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 1:56 pm
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Builder land corruption is for life not just Christmas.

🤘🤘


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 2:55 pm
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I can confidently predict I'll get **** all


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 3:12 pm
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Except Scotch whisky is universally spelled as such.
Which is irrelevant because the two spellings are synonymous.

Unless it is produced by a member of the Scotch Whisky Association in which case it is Whisky and Whisky only. Produced by anyone else it could be whisky or whiskey as long as it has been aged for 3 years. If churned out quicker it is merely a Spirit Drink.
Or so I understand.

I have this year received a bottle of Glenmorangie plus a few bottles of wine so far. Biscuits and chocolates have been responsible for a weight gain of about 7lbs in the last couple of weeks...


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 3:22 pm
 csb
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To clarify, the Irish Whiskey and Scotch Whisky variants each have legally enforced definitions and specifications. To use either name producers have to be verified to an ISO compliant standard.


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 4:08 pm
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Is it pwned or pwnd?


 
Posted : 15/12/2018 4:12 pm
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It would be nice to imagine I could take my pick of the cars we have on site, somewhere between 2-3000, but that is so not going to happen!


 
Posted : 16/12/2018 10:01 pm
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Long gone are the days of buying 50 bottles of scotch, one for the each of the staff, then mistakingly sharing one with a man eater and being lucky to make it home alive.... these days I'll count myself lucky to get a penny chew 😀


 
Posted : 16/12/2018 10:58 pm
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To clarify, the Irish Whiskey and Scotch Whisky variants each have legally enforced definitions and specifications. To use either name producers have to be verified to an ISO compliant standard.

So you're saying that there are specific differences in law in the way they're produced? No difference is given in the EC regulation.


 
Posted : 16/12/2018 11:15 pm
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I got an email instructing me to carry out a compulsary online training module in on our "Gifts and Entertainment Procedure".


 
Posted : 17/12/2018 8:03 am
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I won 12 bottles of wine at the office Christmas raffle the other day, I would have preferred 6 bottles of decent wine but hey beggars can't be choosers and all that.


 
Posted : 17/12/2018 8:49 am
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Some of our co-workers who don't drink wanted the equivalent in tins of biscuits so this year we've had nothing lol


 
Posted : 17/12/2018 8:58 am
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Whisky
or
Whiskey
(a)
Whisky
or
whiskey
is a spirit drink produced exclusively by:
(i) distillation of a mash made from malted cereals with or without whole grains of other cereals, which has
been:

saccharified by the diastase of the malt contained therein, with or without other natural enzymes,

fermented by the action of yeast;
(ii) one or more distillations at less than 94,8 % vol., so that the distillate has an aroma and taste derived from
the raw materials used,
(iii) maturation of the final distillate for at least three years in wooden casks not exceeding 700 litres capacity.
The final distillate, to which only water and plain caramel (for colouring) may be added, retains its colour, aroma
and taste derived from the production process referred to in points (i), (ii) and (iii).
(b) The minimum alcoholic strength by volume of
whisky
or
whiskey
shall be 40 %.
13.2.2008
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
L 39/29
(c) No addition of alcohol as defined in Annex I(5), diluted or not, shall take place.
(d)
Whisky
or
whiskey
shall not be sweetened or flavoured, nor contain any additives other than plain caramel used
for colouring

Not read the Irish regs but The Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009 say pretty much exactly the same. So no, I don't think there is a legal difference in the way they are produced but the spelling is legally enforced based on their geographical origin.


 
Posted : 17/12/2018 9:50 am
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These arrived by Courier this morning. I don't really drink wine, I especially don't drink red.

But... my Dad does, and he's just retired and moved back to the UK and it's his birthday on the 27th (which usually gets forgotten) sorted.

Wine


 
Posted : 17/12/2018 10:26 am
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I would like to see less corruption in the construction industry........ or more opportunities to participate in it personally.

Current score is one bottle of Tennessee Honey Jack Daniels but it’s early days......


 
Posted : 17/12/2018 10:36 am
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In the sector I work in bottle-giving isn't really much of a thing. Its all about the hugs. Big, energetically delivered hugs that hit you like they've been thrown across the room.

Went to a client's Christmas party on Friday night and it was kind of like a 6 hour all-in wrestling match (more like 9 hours but I arrived fashionably late so everyone was limbered up). Just arriving and getting to the drinks table felt like being one The Beatles trying to get from the stage door to the bus.


 
Posted : 17/12/2018 1:46 pm
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Its all about the hugs.

Not Ted Baker by any chance 😉


 
Posted : 17/12/2018 2:45 pm
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Its all about the hugs.

Are you a Tellytubby?


 
Posted : 17/12/2018 2:47 pm
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Been a dry day today. 4 left to go with some of the usual donaterers still absent....


 
Posted : 17/12/2018 4:10 pm
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A bottle of Campo Viejo Rioja, a diary and a calendar today.


 
Posted : 17/12/2018 4:17 pm
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Not Ted Baker by any chance

I was wearing a Ted Baker suit funnily enough - must be a design feature. Or a case of mistaken identity.


 
Posted : 17/12/2018 5:36 pm
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Are you a Tellytubby?

I was wearing a Tellytubblie suit funnily enough – must be a design feature. Or a case of mistaken identity.


 
Posted : 17/12/2018 5:37 pm
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Aaah,  .......the Ted Baker Tellytubby range.

A design classic.

I trust you were sporting  the matching Tinky Winky handbag?


 
Posted : 17/12/2018 5:41 pm
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no, but I've been dropping heavy hints about getting one as a Christmas present. This is one of them.


 
Posted : 17/12/2018 5:44 pm
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A resurgance in activity today, will do as Christmas day plonk once the guests no longer care what they are consuming 😁


 
Posted : 18/12/2018 1:02 pm
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My job involves assessing suppliers, thankfully I'm not the one to give the good or bad news so I don't get offered anything - but if I was I would reject it anyway on principle (not sure what our corporate policy would be but for my own peace of mind it would be a 'thanks but no')


 
Posted : 18/12/2018 2:15 pm
 DezB
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What is it about whisky that brings out such major pretentiousness? It's just a bloody drink.


 
Posted : 18/12/2018 3:17 pm
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What is it about whisky that brings out such major pretentiousness? It’s just a bloody drink.

It does seem to be the King of the Snobs in the booze world, I guess a lot of it comes from the Scot's nicking it from the Irish and claiming it as their own - even before the Yanks got in on the racket.

It's not unique in that though, I don't know if it's me, but it seems EVERYTHING is sold with an side of pretentiousness now. I blame Starbucks, they took a simple product, threw a lot of pomp and marketing BS at it and now every **** thinks they're some kind of coffee aficionado.


 
Posted : 18/12/2018 3:41 pm
 DezB
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Yeah, I didn't think about that really, did I.... wine... and nowadays... [url= https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/great-beer/ ]beer![/url]


 
Posted : 18/12/2018 3:45 pm
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A pint of Stella and a Greggs sausage roll has none of the pomp.


 
Posted : 18/12/2018 3:45 pm
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Have had a good run in the past, but as a contractor now, I probably won't get much.

Although from my desk I can see an entire desk covered in a collection of mince pies, Quality Street (can see 8 boxes of those!), some fancy M&S biscuits, Roses, Hero's & some other random boxes.

In an office of 12 people, it's probably going to last until summer!


 
Posted : 18/12/2018 4:04 pm
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Good thread. But ‘humble brag’ is a brag disguised as a moan, no?

Surely it’s just a brag 😉


 
Posted : 18/12/2018 8:40 pm
 csb
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Ransos, squirrelking has explained well. The Scotch whisky/Irish whiskey thing is basically intellectual property protection of the name, but publically enforced (by the state) as opposed to privately (e.g. in court by a trademark owner).

I'll be shouted down by whisky nerds but apart from the geography, and the taste profile (peatiness etc.), there is no difference between the products.


 
Posted : 19/12/2018 10:52 am
 kilo
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We get f all and I’ve just bought a bottle of cognac so the cleaner gets some as no one here cba’ed so technically I’m down on bottles 🙁


 
Posted : 19/12/2018 11:24 am

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