I am going to offer you a few quotes and I want you to see if you can work out what they're talking about.

"This is soft, round and sweet, with notes of heather, orange, pineapple, clove and demerera sugar. A juicy mouthful."

or

"Iodine smokiness and sweet fruit. A beguiling combination of light and heavy, coal smoke and pears. It has a lovely balance between complex and effortless."

or

"Sweet juicy pear and baked apple fruit with a lemony, white wine note. It's a bit likeopening a bag of candied sweets and the delicate bonfire smokiness underneath really comes out if you add water. Beautiful but with attitude."

and finally, before I lose the will to live.

"Big, rich, dark flavours of sweet fruit with creamy notes, but also chocolate, vanilla, fresh Tarmac and varnish, with a brooding peaty kick on the back palate. An awful lot is going on here and the finish lasts for weeks. Just make sure you dilute it one third with spring water."

Now there are some clues in there which give it away to those in the know but it isn't wine!

No - it's your £30 a bottle and upward Scotches and all from the Isle of Islay.

Where on EARTH do these people dig these descriptions up from? And what sort of life have they led to enable them to describe a £90 bottle of scotch as having a taste of "...fresh tarmac and varnish..."

If I wanted that sort of experience I'd chew on a chest of drawers or a sideboard!

As I say, perhaps it's me but what on earth do descriptions like that actually convey to you?

A description of "...coal smoke and pears..." merely conveys my dear mothers terrible home cooking!

Ah well - at least no one has tried (to my knowledge) to describe a Guinness in such flowery (= banal) terminology.

Poor me cold one Bar tender please as I feel a moment coming on....