Strangely enough, it was from Lidl. Lidl has become something of a not-so-well-hidden secret among aspiring (aspirin?) wine buffs who want to show that they're "not fucking wine snobs, ay-kay?" But who still drive those silly Porsche four-by-fours and wear the appropriately named Ugg boots. At any rate, who'd have thought it? They also do a stand up bourbon.

What happened was this: I had a hang-over, not a lethal one but nonetheless, and so I trod the familiar steps towards that bastion of cheap food which is Lidl. And then, just as I was about to leave, to pay up and get out, I spotted a bottle of this stuff. It's a strange and recurring theme in my purchasing history that, as soon as I enter either Lidl or Aldi I feel an almost irresistible compulsion to buy cheap booze. Must be the fact that booze tends to be at a premium here in Ireland and my boss still hasn't awakened to the fact that I'm his most important employee and well… times have been tough. Plus, who can resist something called Golden Sun Straight Old Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey. If the name were any longer, or more golden, or sunny you'd feel like you were buying a Hawaian vibrator.

And then it happened. I arrived home and, stomach scoured from a night of boozing, view blurred by the slight pounding of a tear duct as it desperately tried to rehydrate my vein-ridden eye balls, I approached the cure… Well, what was meant to be a cure anyway. I poured a measure of the sunny, golden bourbon into a tumbler, followed by a slug of cola of some make or other. And as the first wave washed down my food pipe I felt, nay, knew that I would be having more of this. The main thing that hits you is the molasses. It's not the unrefined molasses flavour that has ruined many a slice of bread in the past. It's a demerara sugar molasses hybrid that has the bark of a sheepdog but the nipples of a charolet on a cold day.

So, then you've had your whiskey and coke and you want to know more about this frisky young thing which wasn't all that bad, despite being covered with coke. And you pour another, this time without the coke. And then you realise that what you've got there is a better drink than you'd anticipated. There's a bit of nice burn to it and a creaminess. And then you have that warm wooly feeling that makes you think, Well, maybe my eyes aren't that dry after all and my throat? Well, hot diggety dog, that's just plum great too! In short, this southern, hillbilly poison is a Clinton of a whiskey. It swaggers and makes you feel all dandy and then before you know it, well, jee whizz, it's bombing a defenseless country and denying you ever did receive fellatio in public office. Well, that's more like the bit where you wake up the next day with your second hangover.