Does whisky have a place at table alongside wine? JULIAN COLE spends a pleasurable evening trying to work that one out.

WINE is the usual choice with a meal.

Beer gives it a go, with various real ales coming out of the pub to claim an affinity with food. Now whisky is flexing its oak-hued muscles, too.

Last week a pre- Burns Night meal at Middlethorpe Hall in York matched whiskies from the Adelphi Distillery with food prepared by the hotel’s head chef, Nicholas Evans.

Instead of wine there was a different whisky with every course, and each glass was introduced by Antonia Bruce, a charming Edinburgh woman who delights in the title of distillery ambassador.

We began with smoked haddock cullen skink, in which there floated a slow-cooked hen’s egg yolk, a thing of lovely mystery: how had they cooked that? To accompany this fishy treat, we drank the 15-yearold Clynelish, a sharp, clear, orangey and syrupy Highland whisky. It seemed an unlikely pairing, but worked a treat.

Next up was venison and haggis Wellington, in which the haggis played the role usually given over to paté, lying in a layer between the venison and the puff pastry. A pool of rich gravy added to the flavours, as did the Bunnahabhain 1987, a real treat of an Islay whisky, aged for 25 years in sherry casks, and carrying a definite hint of sherry, alongside a figgy taste and a delicate sweetness.

This was easily the most rewarding tipple of the night.

For dessert, there was a Drambuie parfait of poached winter fruits, granola and whisky sabayon, served with Miltonduff 1981, a Bourbon-tinged Speyside used in the Ballantine blends. This was another treat, not quite up there with the Bunnahabhain, but still resonant with a fruity, honeyed, waxy sweetness.

The only challenging note of the night came with the coffee and sweetmeats, when we were served the six-year-old Glenrothes, a Speyside that comes in a hefty 67.4 per cent volume – high in alcohol even for a whisky. There was a lot of toffee sweetness here, with a clotted creaminess, but it still seemed a little raw.

So will whisky edge out wine?

Unlikely when you consider the availability of wine and the higher costs of malt whisky. But good whisky certainly deserves a place at table sometimes, as well as on the sofa late on a Friday night when giggling over Graham Norton (the long-held custom of this writer).

Dates for your diary

MIDDLETHORPE Hall, which is now owned by the National Trust, runs a number of themed meals.

Coming up are a Bollinger Champagne dinner next Friday, an Argentinian wine and Yorkshire steak dinner on February 28, and a beer tasting of Yorkshire ales followed by a pie and pea supper, on March 21.

Also, on March 11, head gardener David Barker will be hosting a Royal Horticultural Society garden tour and spring lunch at the hotel.

For details phone 01904 641241 or visit middlethorpe.com