Summer is here. With a bit of a vengeance in southern Minnesota: it’s been pretty hot here this past week (my readers in North India should stop rolling their eyes). I’m looking forward to the break but it won’t be as long as usual this year. That’s because we’ll be spending six weeks of it in Dublin and Belfast in the second half of the summer, where I’ll be leading an off-campus program. But before that we’ll get to do some traveling of our own elsewhere in Europe: we’re off to Italy for a few weeks in the third week of June (we’ll go from there to Ireland). A busy summer of travel, and most of it spent outside the US, means there won’t be very much Twin Cities-centered restaurant reviewing in the months ahead. There will, of course, be restaurant reports from Italy and Ireland instead (and I realize now that I never did get around to posting my restaurant reports from my exploratory trip to Ireland last July). I’m not quite sure what will happen with the whisky reviews. I have enough reviews already in the bag to take me through the end of the month and into July. As to whether I’ll have time before leaving to bank reviews for the rest of the summer as well, I don’t know. It’s possible that in late July and August you’ll get a bunch of Irish whiskey reviews from Ireland.

But in June it’ll be mostly business as usual: three whisky reviews a week; one Twin Cities report on Tuesdays (for at least the first three weeks); and a desperate attempt to finish up my Seoul and New Jersey/New York reports. And as usual you can help me choose the themes for the weeks of whisky reviews. If any of the following interest you more than others, please write in below.

• A week of sherry-bothered Bunnahabhains
• A week of wine-bothered malts from different distilleries (Kilchoman, Caol Ila, Ballechin/Edradour)
• A week of sherry-bothered Edradours
• A week of Kilkerrans
• A week of Caol Ila
• Another week of older MacKillop’s Choice releases

Over to you.