Irn Bru – Scotland’s other national drink

A blogpal (you know who you are) has recently been imbibing that stuff which some people call golden nectar, in other words whisky, and I was asked for some advice on the matter. As I said I’m not a great one for the booze but I would plump for a hot toddy any day or night as my favourite way of drinking whisky but really for me it is honestly just medicinal. I’m sure that just breathing in the fumes kills off germs.

Otherwise I’m with the younger generation and I would mix whisky with Coke or Irn Bru, I did think of ginger beer but on second thoughts that would be piling fire on fire! I must admit though that I do enjoy a wee Baileys from time to time, definitely neat.

Anyway, I decided to have a look and see if Irn Bru has reached the other side of the pond yet and the answer seems to be that it is sometimes available at Highland Games in the US. As it isn’t all that long since it managed to make it into English supermarkets I imagine it’ll be a long time before it’s generally available in the US – shame. It’s our other national drink!

I thought you might like to see a couple of old Irn Bru adverts. My favourite is still the parody of ‘The Snowman’ one, but that’s obviously only shown at New Year.

The Crazy Yanks advert is a parody of the Coca Cola ones.

Then there’s the High School Musical parody, I never watched that programme and I don’t think it’s a great ad but it has its moments.

So what does Irn Bru taste like? It’s difficult to describe, it’s a bit fruity, some people say bubble gum-ish, slightly (pleasantly) metallic and my Dutch sister-in-law almost choked when she first tried it. I say first, but she only ever tried it once so I suppose it might be one of those things that you have to grow up with otherwise you think it’s disgusting.