About Me

“In a hole in the ground there lived an idiot¹…”, that idiot is me. My name is Alberto, I am a whisky lover (or aficionado, geek, nerd… pick your favourite) based in Italy. Maybe I am being a bit harsh on myself when I call myself an idiot, but I certainly have an uncanny ability for bad timing. Let me explain.

Whiskey has been an on-and-off interest for me for the best part of 25 years, but I only started to become seriously interested in the topic at the end of 2022. So occasionally it feels like I lost a ton of time I could have dedicated to enjoying whisky.

The reason why I call myself an idiot is that I lived in Scotland for over a decade before Brexit. Did I deep dive into the wonderful world of single malt while I lived there? Hah! That would have been too simple. While I did have my fair share of lovely and sometimes rare drams while living in beautiful Caledonia, instead of exploring the national drink of the Scots (after IrnBru clearly), I got into wine. I know: an Italian learning about wine in Scotland seems absurd. I studied, sampled and managed to get a WSET level 3 award in wine for my efforts. Whisky remained an occasional interest back then.

Now back in Italy, a country with a very strong link to modern whisky history, but today with a smaller and priceier whiskey scene(thanks to our taxes and distribution model) compared to some of our European neighbours, I finally caught the whiskey bug I started writing this blog, Road to Dram, in late 2023, sharing my journey of whiskey (re)discovery.

Two and a half years later, my initial exploration through the main whisky styles and categories came to a close in early 2026 and so I decided to start a new phase of the journey under the Return Dram name, with a new mission.

I hope you will enjoy my musing and take a moment to share your thoughts in the comments.

Slàinte!

Alberto

¹Adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Hobbit” chapter 1