Kitchen

When I was a kid, there was a hotel in my street. One night I found a white glass bottle. It smelled of coconut. I suppose it was bounty (Scottish joke). Anyway, it was in fact a bottle of Malibu.

It seemed so exotic. Coconut, palm trees, caribbean holidays. Along with my sky blue 'It's Better In The Bahamas' t-shirt, the bottle inspired a longing for far away desert beach paradises.

I always associated Malibu with this desire.

So, when I was about 16 and on a camping holiday with my pals on the midgie infested Scottish island of Arran and went to the shop to get the booze (cause I looked the oldest, this is funny cause I don't), I spotted a bottle of Malibu and was instantly transported back to that warm summer evening, smelling the exotic, classy in a 1980s way, discarded bottle of cheap white, coconut infused, rum.

I knew I shouldn't, all my mates just wanted cider and beer. But, I knew best, I knew they'd love it just as much as I expected I would. I mean, I really actually knew they'd be pissed off but I did it anyway. So, I spent half our money on beer & fags and the other half on some life changing Malibu.

Needless to say, everyone was pissed off. Anyway, no one touched the Malibu and there it say, in my bag, taunting me, embarrassing me. Until, one morning, we'd been alternately been eaten alive my midgies, slept badly and been eaten alive by midgies whilst sleeping badly. I decided enough was enough, if we were gonna have such a shit time, we may as well pretend we were in the fucking Bahamas.

I retrieved the bottle which had unfortunately burst it's seal and now had the largest colony of ants making fuckin' merry on it.

That, as they say, was the end of that.

I relayed this story of Malibu woe and so near yet so far almost dalliances with said liquor to Kate. And, at the last party I was presented this fine bottle of Malibu.

Today, I had my very first taste of Malibu.

It was worth the wait.

I love it!

Thank you.